While it's on my mind.... Jonathan Kraft gets airtime on one of the biggest drive-time radio programs in Boston with a captive audience in a key target demographic. And what does he do? Grounds out to second. Here is a golden opportunity to promote one of his assets, literally for free, and he blows it. Just as he's done many times in the past. Rather than steer the conversation towards his agenda (if he even had one) he lets Felger dictate the content. When the Revs come up as a topic, it's nothing more than a gloss-over. No promotion of any game, nevermind the one being played that night. Nothing. And that is so damn fustrating. Flashback to when Gillette was opening in 2002. The team got members of the Riders to help call potential season ticket holders to sell tickets. The team back then insisted on having the supporters help sell the team. And to this day, they still depend on word of mouth to sell tickets to some degree. Well you know what, F*CK IT. When the friggin' owner/operator can't be bothered to promote/advertise, why the hell should we? If the Kraft's "business model" is to emphasize value, yet they waste free opportunities, then I'd call that a seriously flawed plan.
Great post, very well said. Contrast this approach by Jon Kraft - a Harvard MBA - to Larry Lucchino and you have marketing polar opposites. As you said, so much for maximizing value and taking advantage of opportunities when they're presented.
If kraft ran the entire league and treated the whole league this way I would run with it.. However he has very little influence over MLS as a whole. What I honestly believe is that Hes trying to get the rest of the league to spend the money and do the work for him. He spends as little as physically possible trying to make a small profit or brake even for a tax write off until the sport becomes that "Global Behemoth" here in the states. When that time comes he will have a hundreds of millions of dollar franchise that he didnt have to spend money to market and only cost him 10 million to buy into... He then looks like a Genious for the foresight. If im not mistaken didnt Kraft make an inquiry about trying to buy Liverpool ? I really dont doubt they love the game.. The issue is they lack the dedication and passion to there own team. Instead of spending 500 million dollars to buy Liverpool how about you spend 100 million on an urban stadium the likes of which MLS has never seen... bring in 2 or 3 DPS for 10 million, Then spend a shit ton of money advertising the team and turn the Revs into a Liverpool caliber team. (btw.. I hate liverpool and i know they suck but my example holds no merit without them in the equation) He was reading questions from fans actually. He didnt sit down and write a list of things to question. When they were talking about how the Revs are the buffalo bills of soccer, He should have used that opportunity to mention that the Revs are the only US team to have won Super Liga, hell I would have. To the dire hards it doesnt sound like anything special but to the casual non MLS fan It would have sounded impressive and if your trying to sell it to Mexican fans then you mention how they beat Atlante, Pachuca and Santos without giving up a single goal to do so.
That's exactly the point. In this one franchise, our NFL masters have seen to it that we are maintained on life support, while the rest of the league flourishes under MLS 2.0. Oh hey look, I think I just saw Thierry Henry and Ronaldinho driving west on the Mass Pike.
The Krafts have never had to learn how to sell tickets. They inherited (well, bought -- it's a notable difference, I suppose) an NFL team that was already selling out all home games thanks to the arrival of Parcells and Bledsoe. They had a playoff team in the first season, AFC champ third season, and that was that. The team sold itself. The fact that the Revs stuck with the Soccer Smiles tactic for more than a decade is proof that they had no concept on how to build support for this sport, this club. And now that they have to change course and sell the "hey, we're a legitimate team -- Pride and Passion, baby!", there's little evidence that they can pull that off either. So the fact that they didn't ace a radio interview is merely a drop in the bucket.
That is very funny... the sad part is that its true. Trust me I know we are the one franchise in the entire league that is just 100% substandard. You know back in the late 90's I honestly thought we were a rolemodel franchise. Pulling in 20k a game players like Zenga and Weldon.... Oh yeah! how many of you people remember weldon. Now we have jack and shit and nothing in the mixer..... that has honestly always been my take. They think cause they bought a great franchise at clearance sale price they are guru's and nothing could be farther from the truth. How many decisions have the krafts honestly had to make with the patriots? And quite honestly the toughest dicision they ever had to make was back in 1997 and they dropped the ball and it cost us a super bowl. They are doing the same thing with the revs they are doing with the pats.. they are trying to make the decisions at the top leveling "thinking" they know what they are doing and not trusting the guy who has spent his life doing it.. (btw... Parcells wanted Mirer not Bledsoe but krafts wife wanted bledsoe so she got what she wanted) Its just really frustrating when people take credit for something they had nothing to do with and make a living off of that misinformed credit. Btw.. there is a guy in my town who owns a fortune 500 company hes extremely rich and loves soccer. he has ties all over the states and actually coached me back in the early 1990's (hell i almost married his daughter) maybe i can convince him to buy the revs
Which decision was this? If you're talking about Parcells, there was no decision to be made. Well apparently Myra knows what she's talking about then, because Bledsoe proved himself to be about 100 times better than Mirer.
They had no choice in keeping Parcells, he wa going to quit no matter what. Also Kraft did not own the Patriots when Bledsoe was drafted, so that quote can not be true. Bledsoe was drafter 4/25/1993. Kraft bought the team Jan 1994. Also just so you know when hired by James Orthwein he was giving full control and thus he decided on Bledsoe.
Whether they do or not (and if so, why) is debatable, that isn't the question. The question is whether they should. Just curious, what interviews have you heard with a local sports figure that were "informative"? The only ones that I hear that don't seem like they come from some agent or pr person's script are from the guys who get labeled as having a bad attitude.
When Jeremy Jacobs does his (pretty much) one radio interview a year, he always talks about the rebuilding of the organization, scouting, the draft, potential transactions, etc. When the Sox owners go on the air, they're talking about and being asked about players, the playoff push, and off-the-field promotional events. I'm sure both are reading off of PR scripts, but they're useful and informative PR scripts. With J. Kraft the script needs to be updated.
- Shawn Thornoton has a weekly interview on 98.5. He discusses the behind-the-scenes stuff with the Bruins as well as game reviews. All with a healthy dose of comedy/self deprecation. - Jon Lester calls in weekly as well. This past week alone he shed light on the Jacoby Ellsbury situation - During Bruins season, both Cam Neely and Peter Chiarelli call in and discuss from office operations (describing as much as possible given the nature of their jobs). - Wyc Grousbeck calls in all the time to WAAF and is always discussing his team and any charitable promotions the Celtics are undertaking Those are but a few examples. But their regularly scheduled appearances heighten brand awareness at the very least. Some of these appearances have corporate sponsorship and some are part of the deal as broadcast partners. That said, I'm surprised (not shocked) that the Revs didn't arrange for a player to do a regular call-in during the season with 98.5. As we've seen from Twellman during the world cup, the guy is a natural at this and not having him on is a huge wasted opportunity to raise awareness of the Revs and promote the team.
Not to mention Bill Belichick did his 'Patriots Monday' weekly appearance on WEEI with the Big Show (not sure if he did it this past fall or not). Lucchino also did a weekly call-in Thursday mornings on Dennis and Callahan IIRC. Agree with you 100% on Twellman/98.5/wasted opportunities.
Doc and Tito have also given out some information that most fans wouldn't know about during their weekly calls in .
Belichick is the the supreme master of the "no-information" interview. He's actually gotten so good at it that the hosts generally don't even realize till the interview is over that they haven't learned anything new that is of any significance. I watch NESN Sportdesk and the equivalent show on CNN and those guys, as well as Julien disclose very little of substance. I actually find listening to Francona to be quite painful, because he not only says almost nothing, but manages to take as long as humanly possible to say nothing.
When Jacobs, Henry, and Kraft-talking-as-owner-of-the-Pats make radio appearances wherein they first talk about news in their sports completely unrelated to the team they own, then answer the same boring questions about the sport 'growing', and then move on to talk about a different property that they own, all while failing to promote or discuss their team's events, the interviews will be comparable to J. Kraft's.