The Sports Info Business

Do you have a favorite Chris Berman nickname?  The long-time ESPN reporter, play-by-play announcer and host made a name for himself a long time ago in a land far far away.

He unveiled her personal nicknames of athletes and integrated them into his broadcast to entertain fans and athletes.  At one point it got him in hot water with the folks running the emerging cable sports and entertainment.  They made him stop, then it was brought back.  In any case, you probably  know a few of his tag lines like back-back-back-back-back-back-back during home run calls

He-could-go-all-the-way….and he does! during great football TD runs, how many of the nicknames he has given athletes over the years can you repeat?

How about a few of these:

Ron Bon in the US Cey

David Sili Cone

Jay Fielder on the Roof

Tom Henke Panky

Stan Javier Self a Merry Little Christmas

John I am not a Kruk

Sandis Ozolinsh that stole Christmas

Eric Karros Matic.

It goes one and on…..

Personally, I have held quite a few nicknames over the years.  As a kid living in Chicago, it was Chuckie.  As I grew older, it turned into Chuck, Chas, Up-Chuck (people still think this is funny 150,000 times later, Chuck Buck, Dodger Chuck, Huck, Chuck E Baby.  This list also goes goes on and on.

So it came as a surprise when I was working for the Dodgers in the 1990′s that Chris Berman was visiting during an ESPN broadcast.  He looked and me and as if he knight me, proclaimed “Charles E Cheese”   Whenever he saw me, it was always Charles E Cheese.  Years later when we saw each other while I was with the Ducks in the NHL, it was still Charles E Cheese.  No has ever called me it before or since

I don’t think I will show up in any “Best Of” lists, but I am always honored the “Boomer” gave me my own moniker.

If you’d like to see an entire list, I found this special Chris Berman Nickname List. Check it out.

Think about your favorite sports team and then think about the sponsors that have associated with the organization.  It does not matter what sport, just close your eyes or take a pen and paper and try and write down as many businesses that are associated with your team.

How many can you immediately name?  Have they made enough of an impact to register in your long term memory?  Has your impression of these brands improved since they struck a sponsorship deal?  They certainly spend enough money to affiliate with a building/team/organization and the visual or stagnant advertising is just one component

So I did a little experiment on Wednesday evening and while watching ESPN, I tried to ignore the highlights and write down as many businesses as I could that received exposure, long enough for me to recognize the name and to scribble it down on scratch paper. You certainly do not tune in to ESPN to watch sponsor visibility but it is certainly a part of why sponsors affiliate with teams.

Here is what I saw from the following baseball highlights.

St. Louis Cardinals at Houston Astros

Dasani Water

Best Buy

First Community Bank

Corona Beer

Admini Staff

C&D

Farmer’s

Chicago Cubs at Philadelphia Phillies

Modells

Citizens Bank

Turkey Hall

Chevydealer.com

Milwaukee Brewers at Pittsburgh Pirates

Consul Energy

Trib

FSN

New Era

San Francisco Giants at Atlanta Braves

Sun Trust

Coca Cola

Zep

Geico

Aaron’s

Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees

Modells

Toyota

Pepsi

Pepsi max

Sony

Hass

Casio

Avis

Ford

Delta

Ford

Mastercard

Budweiser

Corporate Exposure Seen in two or more baseball parks.

Stanley

State Farm

Stubhub

Any sane corporation is not relying solely on a static advertising program as part of its affiliation with a sports team. Those days are long gone for smart businesses.  Today, It is all about activation and return on investment (ROI).  Many times, the first step for a partner is to baseline or measure the amount of awareness the brand has with its fans.  It then moves into programs on how to improve the brand image with the team and finally ways to sell more goods and services to the same fans.  More about this in a different post.

A few other items I noticed while looking for sponsors.

* The Signs at Yankees stadium are larger than most fo the other stadiums I saw and it was easier to read the names of its sponsors.

* Exposure from company logos behind home plate received the most time in the highlights, but a few of the signs had a bad design, including one from Minute Maid, that read “Kids Free All Summer.”  I really could not understand the message and it took an extra large focus to see it was in fact, Minute Maid.

* A few of the stadiums continue to have sight lines that do not support some of the signage being sold.

For Major League Baseball and Sponsors, the exposure still adds up to a winning formula for the sport.

Unusual for three posts in a day but this is also worth your attention.  If you do not know who Erin Andrews is, then you must not watch ESPN very often.  The blond haired reporter for the cable sports TV network knows her sports and also knows how to turn a head or two.  For women reporters on television, it is par for the course.

Often hired for their good looks, they are also fodder for comedians and critics if they do not know the statistics and records, but at times receive more unwanted attention than they care for because of the same good looks that got them hired.

So, I was browing Yahoo Sports news, when a story came across my computer this evening that deserved a thorough read.  The Headline from Monday’s

New York Post was also on top the story, and the headline was sure to draw attention: Erin Andrews Nude Video For Sales To Highest Bidder:  Report

MSNBC countered with its own headline:  Erin Andrews nude video may have linked to virus.

I was saddened by the news sites taking advantage of the reporter’s issue with a peeping Tom with a video camera.  It seems someone video taped a Nude Andrews IN HER HOTEL ROOM through a peep hole and put it up on the internet.

While many of the sites focused on the news story, Erin’s name was a top 10 searchable item on Google Trends.  I hope in the coming day or two that a female reporter will step up and address the issue of sex and sports from a personal perspective.

For as long as women reporter’s have been around a men’s locker room, there have been issues of access and fair reporting.  While not an easy subject, the topic will never truly go away when you mix men and women together.

This however was not an issue of access.  Any Erin Andrews video on the Internet from a hotel room is an issue of invasion.

Friday is technology time and I thought this week we would look at the top Social Media networking sites by rank.  Sure everyone probably knows in overall website traffic Google is number one in the world, but where do you think MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Digg rank?  While not social media sites, Yahoo is number two. and YouTube (considered social media?) is #3,  Want to know more?  read on…..Instead of using this site’s claims, we turn to www.alexa.com for their over site rankings lists.  In order of social media, here are the current rankings by popularity.

Please note the links are not to the sites themselves but to the Alexa stats on each site….

Here we go.

No. 4   facebook  The site was ranked number five three months ago.  Users spend more than 25 minutes per visit on the site and 268,000+ link to it.

No. 8 Blogger.com   Has been online since July 31st, 2000, though users spend much less time on the site than no. 4  

No. 9  MySpace  Down from No. 2 three months ago.  Media reports more than 200 million users around the world.  Alexa says 68%+ users come from the United States.

No. 12 Word Press — Yet another site that enables millions to blog.  

No. 33 Flickr  The five year old company specializes in online photo sharing.  Visitors average a little less than five minutes per day on the site.

No. 50 Twitter:  If you read this site you know I am a fan of Twitter and the micro-blogging site’s rise has been nothing short of amazing.  Consider this according to Alexa.  Three months ago, it was ranked #441.  Users spend nearly 10 minutes a day on the site and less than half of all users call the U.S. home. 

No. 94  LinkedIn.  The professional networking site has just 55,771 links to it (several more than this site! :>) but am a bit shocked.  Based on the economy and people’s need to network and locate job listings, I would have guessed higher.  I use this site and I think it is very valuable.

If you would like to see Alexa’s Top 100 sites for the U.S. only, then here is a different link.    Some sites that rank in the Top 100 here but not in the world include Blogspot (No. 55) Digg (82), Yelp (84)

Just for the heck of it, I wanted to check out Top U.S. Sites when it came to sports related subjects as well.  Here is what Alexa says

No. 18 ESPN

No. 63 cbssports.com

No. 70 Fox Sports

No. 81 Major League Baseball (MLB.com)

No. 96 NBA (NBA.com)

In the early 1990′s, pre-internet now folks, I remember how we used to keep tabs on Major League Baseball scores from the Dodgers front office.  There was a designated Sports Ticker computer located near the office entrance and you could watch (slowly) the scores being updated.

Then for special events like the college basketball tournament, I remember hearing friends disappearing at sports bars to watch as many games as possible.  While this still happens, the technology has changed yet again.

How times have changed.  You can now click and watch live NCAA Tournament basketball games from the comfort of your computer.  While I only tried this yesterday during lunch-time, the picture was clear, the movement easy and I was able to see the action in real time.

ESPN has links from its basketball central homepage.  You can just click on the “watch live” buttons below the live game of interest.  The site then takes you to a lead in commercial and you not only see the game action but related commercials as well.

The initial commercials you see when clicking are presented by one of the NCAA March Madness on Demand Sponsors which include Coke Zero, AT&T or Pontiac.

The site also offers real time stats, if you need or want to view them with links in the same area.  Here is what they look like.

If you’d like the link to watch the games, here it is.

Happy viewing and enjoy TV on the internet