Did LeBron’s PR Team Drop the Ball?

I’m tight on time, so this is a quick one…

Yesterday, I discovered through an article on espn.com that LeBron James’ TV special “The Decision”—during which he’ll announce who he’ll play for next season—has a charity angle to it. Apparently, a big part of the decision to have a TV special was so that they could sell advertising to raise money for the Boys and Girls Club of America.

As the article states it:

Sources told ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard that representatives for James contacted the network, proposing the idea of a dedicated special. The sources said James’ representatives requested they be allowed to sell sponsorship for the broadcast, and ESPN agreed.

“Due to the unprecedented attention and interest surrounding LeBron’s decision, we have decided to make this announcement on national television,” James’ business manager, Maverick Carter, said on lebronjames.com. “By doing so we have generated funds that will be given to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. LeBron has a longstanding commitment to giving back to the community, and has worked with the Boys and Girls Clubs in cities across the country.”

The problem is, not enough people seem to know this leading up to tonight’s TV special. The public is very much aware of the event but, without knowing about the charity piece and that motivation for doing the special, it just looks like LeBron needs his ego stroked and that a standard press conference isn’t good enough for him.

It seems LeBron’s PR team has a messaging problem. I’m not familiar with the press release they sent out promoting the event but, if it led with the charity angle, that part of their pitch is getting lost. And if they didn’t lead with the charity, they should have.

At this point, even if they promote the charity angle during the event, there are some people who will never become aware of that. They just heard LeBron is having a TV special to make his announcement about who he’ll play for next season, thought that sounded ridiculous and lost interest. Follow-up PR can be done to promote the Boys and Girls Club and how much money was raised, but it seems the charity part of the event could have been promoted much better from the start.

TBS Bumps Phillies-Red Sox to Air Strasburg’s Second Start

How’s this for a statement? TBS has bumped this Sunday’s Phillies-Red Sox game in order to air Stephen Strasburg’s second start. Those are two teams that have each won the World Series in recent years and that have name recognition and star power to draw viewers, whose interleague game has been pulled so that the network can show Strasburg’s start against Cleveland.

Thanks to Richard Deitsch for tip on this one.

Strasburg Debut & MASN Ratings

It’s hard to predict how Stephen Strasburg will do in his major league debut tonight for the Washington Nationals, but I think it’s safe to say that the TV ratings for the broadcast on MASN will break records for the five year old regional sports network.

MASN saw record ratings for some Nats games in May, as contests vs. the New York Mets on May 10 & 11 each drew a 2.0, which are “the highest television ratings of the team’s six-year history in Washington,” according to MASN. MASN also reports that the team had set a record earlier in May, “with a 1.8 household rating for the matchup with Atlanta, when Scott Olsen threw a no-hitter through seven innings.”

As of that May MASN posting, “television ratings for the Nationals [were] up 43 percent over the same period last season” with them team “earning a 1.0 household rating, as more than 20,000 households in Washington tune in nightly.” Last Monday, a Strasburg start for AAA Syracuse, that was broadcast live on MASN, peaked at just shy of that average with a 0.9 rating, according to the Washington Examiner.

One tiny factor to consider tonight regarding the TV viewing audience is that more than 41,000 people will be at the game. That’s well above the team’s average attendance of 21,559 through 27 home games this season. But the hype is so big for Strasburg and this game, that will likely be just a drop in the bucket. MASN should see some through-the-roof ratings tonight.

UPDATE – Wednesday, June 9
John Ourand with Sports Business Journal is reporting that “Strasburg’s debut brought a 6.81 rating to MASN2 in DC.”

UPDATE 2 – Wednesday, June 9
Dan Steinberg has a piece up on the Sports Bog about last night’s TV ratings: “Strasburg debut smashes MASN ratings record.”

UPDATE 3 – Wednesday, June 9
MASN is reporting: “Preliminary overnight Nielsen ratings show that the Nationals game on MASN has set a new record high rating for the network, earning a 7.1 HH rating as more than 165,000 households in the Washington region tuned in to watch an historic pitching performance.”

Bringing Some Dignity Back to June 4

June 4′s got to be feeling a little slighted right now. That was the day that many in the media speculated would be the major league debut of highly-touted pitching prospect Stephen Strasburg, which caused a run on tickets for the Friday night game against the Cincinnati Reds.

Then the team made the official announcement that Strasburg’s first game would be June 8, meaning June 4 is simply a Friday night game that a much larger than average number of people now have tickets to.

Something special could still happen at Nationals Park that night (throw a no hitter, Livan!), but why leave that to chance? There’s a way the Nats front office can restore a little dignity to that date and ensure that game has meaning again for some of the fans who still choose to attend — Let Teddy Win!

Photo courtesy of Cheryl Nichols - http://natsnewsnetwork.blogspot.com

Whoever came up with the idea to have Teddy Roosevelt never win the Presidents Race at Nats games is a marketing genius. I don’t know if that was the plan from the beginning or if Teddy just hadn’t won one of the first few races and the marketing team decided to keep it that way, saving it in their back pocket for a special occasion. Or maybe the plan is to have Teddy never, ever win. Regardless, it’s become a part of Nats subculture and it’s brilliant.

The Nats don’t owe anything to anyone who bought tickets to the June 4 game on speculation that it might be Strasburg’s MLB debut. The team never made any official statement about when he would debut until naming June 4-6 and June 8-10 as possible dates last week, and then coming out with the June 8 announcement this week.

But it never hurts to pleasantly surprise your customers. Granted, a Teddy win is not in anyway a Strasburg debut, but it’s still something that some will proudly say they were there in-person for. Really, other than an amazing on-field performance, what better way is there to reward those in attendance for this non-Strasburg start than with something that’s just as rare as Pitching Jesus?

Perhaps the Nats already have Teddy’s first win planned for some special occasion down the road. If not, I hope they’ll give a June 4 Teddy win some thought. Teddy would finally get to have his day and June 4 would get to feel special again too. It’s win-win — and then Teddy can go right back to losing every race.

Excellent Use of Google Ads

I came across this last week on Twitter through Tim Ferriss. It’s a great example of using the power of the internet to make something happen. In this case, Alec Brownstein used $6 in Google ads to create a nice opportunity for himself.

June 8 MLB Debut for Nationals’ Strasburg Makes Better Baseball Sense

Washington Nationals fans and the media have been speculating that 2009 #1 pick Stephen Strasburg will make his major league debut on Friday, June 4 against the Cincinnati Reds. Tickets for that date have been selling well, even before the team made any sort of official announcement on when Strasburg will pitch his first game for the Nats.

But today, according to Mark Zuckerman on CSNWashington.com, the team “identified a window of possible dates during the Nationals’ next homestand (June 4-6 against the Cincinnati Reds and June 8-10 against the Pittsburgh Pirates)” when Strasburg could possibly make his debut.

There will be a lot of disappointed ticket holders if Strasburg doesn’t pitch on June 4, but starting him June 8 seems to make better baseball sense. As Zuckerman states, “In order for Strasburg to make the June 4 start against the Reds, he would need to take one extra day of rest following Saturday’s Class AAA outing. If he remains on normal rest, he would start again for Syracuse June 3 at Buffalo. He could then debut against the Pirates June 8 at Nationals Park on normal rest. He could also be bumped back a day or two and pitch later in that series.”

To me, it just seems that you’d want to have Strasburg pitching on a normal four days rest, no more and no less, when he makes his MLB debut. There could be enough on his mind as he takes the mound in a Nats uniform for the first time and I see no reason to risk throwing him off with an extra day of rest, just so he can start the June 4 game that so many fans have purchased tickets to.

As Zuckerman’s article says “there is little financial reason for the Nationals to keep him in the minors any longer [after his start this Saturday], because he most likely will have passed the date that ensures he can’t become eligible for salary arbitration until 2014.” But I see no harm in giving him one more AAA start so that he makes his MLB debut on 4 days rest. He could get hurt in that final AAA start but that could happen anytime and it seems more likely something might go wrong when you throw off a pitcher’s routine.

The better PR move at this point may be a June 4 start, but the team never made any announcement pointing to that date as Strasburg’s definite debut. And, over the long haul, positioning Strasburg for success as he begins his major league career makes more sense—from both a baseball and, likely, a PR perspective as well—than pleasing those who bought June 4 tickets on speculation.

Keep in mind, I have zero experience working in baseball operations, though I’d like to think my having led several dynasties—including the Nats—to multiple World Series wins in EA Sports baseball in the past has to count for something. They’re pretty much the same thing, right?

What Affect Will the ICC Have on Property Value?

Living just a few miles from where the first segment of the Intercounty Connector (ICC) is scheduled to open this fall in Maryland, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the new road will do for our property value. By late 2011, when two additional segments of the ICC are due to open, it will be possible for someone living in my area to travel from 270 near Rockville to 95 near Laurel without having to go on the DC Beltway or back roads.

Suddenly, it should get much easier for anyone living near us to work in places like Columbia and Baltimore or fly out of BWI, to give just a few examples of what the new road could offer, and I anticipate the ICC will have a positive affect on property value for those with easy access to it. My hunch is that we might see an up-tick in the next few months, as the opening of the first stretch nears and buzz around it builds, with more to come as we approach the opening of the remaining stretches that will connect 270 and 95 in late 2011.

What do you think?

Non-Profit Generating Revenue Through Facebook & Twitter

The non-profit teaching certification program I work for ran a small promotion on Facebook and Twitter last week and we saw some nice results, bringing in over $12,000 in revenue in one day. The promotion also helped us gain new followers, particularly on Facebook, where we’ve gained about 100 new fans since we first announced the promotion about two weeks ago.

Here’s what we did…it’s rather simple and hardly groundbreaking but it worked for us and it could work for others: we gave people something they’d already shown us they wanted and we directed them to our social media channels to get it.

Some specifics
Our program normally costs $975 and whenever we run a promotion giving a discount (i.e. $150 off during January) we see a big response, sometimes with a few hundred people taking advantage of the offer over the course of a month. Normally these promotions are planned out well in advance and have promotional materials, emails and web graphics to go along with them.

For our Facebook/Twitter promotion, we took this successful concept and altered it slightly, giving people one day to save $150 on our program. We called it the One-Day Sale and put a blurb in two of our monthly newsletters, letting people know they could save $150 on our program but the only way to find out when was through Facebook and Twitter. We saw an immediate spike in followers and reactions from people on our Facebook wall. A few days later, we let people know the first One-Day Sale was coming soon, giving them a big hint the day before saying in our status updates “…IT’S TOMORROW…”

Results
We ended up with 15 enrollments (over $12,000 in revenue) through that first One-Day Sale, which is pretty good when you consider that our product is not going to be an impulse buy for people. It costs almost $1,000 to enroll and people will then spend, on average, eight to ten months completing the program. So, we’re never going to see the same results as when someone gives away something like coffee or ice cream on Facebook or offers a discount on a product that is much less expensive than ours and appeals to a wider audience. Our program is also only accepted for public schools in nine states to date, so our market is still rather small compared to an organization that sells a product that could be used in all 50 states or the rest of the world.

Apart from the financial results, there’s also the increase in followers, which means we have more people to get any of our messages out to, not just the One-Day Sale announcements. And, because they know we’ll hold these spontaneous One-Day Sales, some people are more likely to keep an eye on our Facebook page or our Twitter account, during which time they might come across one of our videos, decide to make a donation or read an interesting story about us and share it with others.

A few other upsides to the promo…
The cost for us to hold a One-Day Sale through our social media channels is basically nothing—it’s really just about the time. We also don’t need to plan these out in advance because nothing needs to be printed, no emails need to be scheduled and nothing needs to be done to our website. We can turn around and hold one of these on very short notice. Another nice thing, we already have people wondering when the next one will be. Just yesterday, someone posted to our Facebook wall asking if we’re planning another one soon.

Trying Out GetSocial

I’m trying out GetSocial on my posts now. Icons will appear across the bottom of new posts going forward — you can click on those to share the post across various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Nats Writer Mark Zuckerman & Questions on New Journalism Models

If you missed the story a few week’s back, this is just cool. Mark Zuckerman, former Nats/MLB beat writer for The Washington Times, started a blog and then a campaign to raise funds to travel to and report on Nats spring training. He set a goal of $5,000 on February 8 and surpassed that in just over a day. As of this posting, he’s raised over $10,000.

At a time when paywalls and the future of journalism are hot topics, fundraising successes like Zuckerman’s bring up some questions:

Are people more likely to support a freelance reporter with funding than pay a news organization for online content?

Is a donate-only-if-you-want model something that could work for a traditional media outlet and not just a single writer?

Are there some local journalists (in DC or elsewhere) with a big enough following that they could consistently make more money through a self-employed Zuckerman-type model than they can working for their current employer?

Please share your thoughts in the comments.