Is anyone still upset that they didn't put U.S. or MLS players in those commercials. I know I am. That seemed a little cruel to say the least.
Nike could have definitely "upped" the effect of their Cage commercials in the US had they included someone like Landon.
Nope. The commercials were intent for all world markets, not just the U.S. And U.S. players are not popular anywhere else but the U.S., so it wouldn't make sense to include them. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved to see Clint Mathis in "The Cage." I would have loved to see Landon Donovan get "footballitis." But people in France, or England, or Japan, or Senegal would not. They chose the most recognizable faces, the biggest stars, and for that, you cannot blame them.
That's exactly who I was thinking of. Landon has that appeal that I think would have worked. Maybe even Run DMB. But instead they used these "foreigners" that the average American wouldn't recognize.
U make a pretty good point but, it seemed like the commercials had players from every nation BUT the U.S. Almost like we were purposely being excluded or we weren't considered "good" enough.
Nike - US Company. Landon Donovan - US player It would not have killed them to put in Donovan. He may not have had the proven pedigree of a Davids or a Figo but he wasn't chopped liver. But then again, we found out that pedigree don't mean crap on game day. Donovan ate Figo's lunch. I was just thinking about this 20 minutes ago paging thru my new Eurosport looking at the Nike cage pull out poster.
All the biggest stars from the best soccer countries in the world were included in those Nike ads -- Brazil, Italy, England, Portugal, Spain, etc. Seol and Nakata were the only exceptions, and that's because their countries were the host countries. You are being paranoid that there's a big conspiracy against the U.S., and that's not fair to Nike, which is a business. Their job is to appeal to the worldwide audience. The U.S. is a relatively small soccer market compared to the rest of the world.
the average American wouldn't recognize an american soccer player if you beat them over the head with Landon Donovan. I'm not doggin on the u.s. or u.s. soccer ... but it's a fact. U.S. players aren't really media darlings, and certainly not before their World Cup run.
Bingo, we have a winner. Does any one think the average American would even notice if an American player was in it?
Exactly. The average American wouldn't recognize Figo. But we saw those commercials about 1000 times in June and it would have been a great time to at least introduce a face or two of Amercian players to the average American (who may or may not have been watching). They could have shown a different commercial here in the USA with a few scenes of Landon running around and shown the regular version for all the Euros who would have been offended. If I were Nike, I would have said put Landon in, he is a Nike guy, plays on a Nike team, we want to expand our US soccer revenue, we'll show this version in the US. Not too expensive or difficult.
I'm pretty sure I saw Claudio Renya in some of the Adidas Footballitis commercials. The one when he was heading the ball, looked exactly like him. I know he wears Fila cleats, but it might have been him. So, it appears that they did have the most prominent US player who plays in England. If that wasn't Claudio, then who was it? T-
Bingo, open up the new Rolling Stone magazine. Landon's abs make an appearance in the Nike ad. Yeah, it's only his torso, his face is blocked by the shirt but the ad says, "Landon Donovan wears some type of Nike technology" I was surprised
The Cage commercial was filmed in Rome last year during the month of December--by an American director. Go figure.
I think LD or DMB (he's a Swoosher, right?) could have gone instead of say, Rosicky. But, Donovan is 9 hours time difference away. Between two very minor players (relative to Ronaldo and Figo), my guess is that Nike chose the guy who wouldn't have to travel far and would surely be recognized in his home country. Anyways, LD was already in the Move commercials. Those were for the Winter Olympics, right? I'm 99.9% (haven't seen the commercial in a month) that that player was Raul Gonzalez Blanco. I believe that was practically his only appearance in the commercial, except for the lobby scene at the end. Like you said, Reyna is a Fila man anyway.
I got that too @ the same time you did! In fact that's the main thing that made me think about the subject. Small world after all!!
A few months ago i brought up these very points on a thread where i questioned Nike's committment to American soccer by not putting any US Nats in their coomercials and i used the cage match promo as an example. Most of the replies were that US players were still somewhat unknowns outside US soccer (even within US soccer) and that they were filmed in europe through a Dutch ad agency and it would have been easier getting players who play in Europe than to fly in McBride or Donovan for example. Still, it would be nice to see a commercial on prime-time network TV staring an American soccer player not named Mia Hamm.
Yeah, Mia has done enough. But I've gone back deep in my memory, & I believe I saw Landon in a Nike commercial. Really brief (if it was him.) But he was doing all these juggling tricks. It was sort-of like a collage of all these sports. Anyone else remember?