The true nature of an Invasive ad or sponsorship

            There has always been a saying in the media “Bad news is still news” or is it “Bad news is good news” either way that logic seems to be abused and over applied to sponsorships. In the sports media world sponsorships have become increasingly invasive and downright annoying.

            What is the difference between a good sponsorship and an invasive sponsorship? A good sponsorship can be defined as being successful if it reaches its target audience, target goals, and target market. All three can be mutually exclusive.

            What is an invasive ad or sponsorship? When logging on to ESPN.com or another sports website, have you been bombarded by a huge flash video trailer, or some flash video advertisement for something you don’t plan on buying? It has happened on numerous occasions, and I actually think to myself, I don’t want to buy this product. I don’t want to have to go and find out how to disable the ad option; it’s annoying and tedious. I’m on this site to read about sports not see an old spice ad. Unfortunately those ads and sponsorships are what keep these sites going. Despite the ad being annoying, they are getting full exposure. I’m even discussing it right now on my blog. That’s free press even if it is negative press! This is still not invasive sponsorship.

            Invasive sponsorships and ads can be seen mostly in social media. Facebook is a good example. The program actually fishes through your Internet cookies and history and sees what you have been doing lately. It then posts ads to you, and from you to your friends.  Let me give you an example, I was writing a scene in a book and it had to do with a ring. I did some web searches on engagement rings for visual aid to describe the ring in the book. Next time I went on Facebook all my ads were geared toward getting married or getting engaged.

Recently,Facebook lost Coco Cola as a sponsorship partner because of these practices, and was forced to change their tactic. Now a user must “okay” Facebook posting ads on their behalf.

Why is it important to know about Facebook’s methodology? Well, I foresee a day when Sports Media websites begin to employ the same technique. Instead of going after just standard sponsorships and ads, why not have a bunch of little companies pay to have their ads on ESPN.com. You are ring shopping for your girl friend, and you log on to ESPN.com and see Jared’s, or Kay Jewelers in the background.  This is the true nature of an invasive sponsorship or ad. It will be coming to a website near you, the near future.

I’ll leave you with one last thought. In a study done recently on Internet ads, consumersresponded that online ads were “annoying” (US 68%, UK and Germany 62%).

Sadly it is only going to get worse.

A-Rod Sponsors are surprisingly quiet

I’m sure if you watch ESPN, you’ve been spoon fed every insignificant minor detail of the Alex Rodriguez PED scandal. For those of you who know nothing about it, whilst I envy you, I’ll give you a quick run down. A-Rod as he is called, admitted to using PED’s(Performance enhancing drugs) in 2009. He had signed the biggest contract in MLB of over $275 Million with the Yankees in 2007.  Now 4 years later, A-Rod is at it again. He’s been suspended by MLB for this entire season and next season. He is still playing because he appealed the suspension. He was linked to the BioGenesis scandal for player doping. Furthermore, it came out a few days ago, that A-Rod’s people leaked documents to Yahoo, about other players who were using PED’s. So not only is he a liar and a cheat, now he’s a NARC.

Now that I’ve caught you up on Planet Alex, I want to dive into something more troubling A-Rod’s sponsorships. Before the recent, scandal A-Rod had endorsement deals with majorbrands like PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Nike and Colgate. You’d think that after A-Rod’s big scandal these people would drop him. Let us examine who has, who hasn’t and who I couldn’t find out if they had.
            Nike has dropped Alex Rodriguez since. They really have a hard time picking athletes to represent them, first Tiger Woods, than Lance Armstrong, now A-Rod.

I searched all around but could not find anything to show that PepsiCo, Colgate, or Kraft Goods has withdrawn their sponsorships of A-Rod. It could be they have but I’ve yet to find anything. As of March 2012 they were still sponsorship partners with him according to Forbes.

How do these companies stick by these athletes? In the case of Tiger Woods and Nike, I can understand them coming back together. Redemption stories are top sellers next to the fall of a hero. Until Woods messes up again, I assume Nike will keep him. A-Rod has now messed up twice so Nike has cut ties. The other companies still baffle me. The guy is everything you don’t want your kids to look up too. When Rodriguez is making an extra 2-10 million on year on endorsements, I believe that is a problem.

Dino Laurenzi Jr. Do you know that name?

Dino Laurenzi Jr. Do you know that name? Do you have any clue who Laurenzi is or why he should be suing different media outlets? 

Let us go back a year, to when MVP Ryan Braun star baseball player for the Milwaukee Brewers was accused of using Steroids by MLB. Braun lawyered up quickly and appealed the suspension handed down by MLB.

What was his defense? The specimen collector did not send the specimen out right away, rather waiting a night. This according to Braun’s lawyer was cause for reasonable doubt that the specimen was not tampered with. The courts ruled inBraun’s favor. After the whole incident Braun came out and made a statement. In this statement he acted self righteous, a man wronged, and he said something that would ruin the collectors life.

“There were a lot of things that we learned about the collector, about the collection process, about the way that the entire thing worked, that made us very concerned and very suspicious about what could have actually happened.”

You can even watch his press video and see how self righteous he sounds.

Flash forward back to the present. Ryan Braun signed a huge $128 million contract before the season and now has been found guilty of using Steroids and settled with MLB on being suspended for the rest of the season. He was linked in the Bio-Genesis scandal that rocked MLB, the same scandal that Alex Rodriguez is dealing with right now.

Why is the name Dino Laurenzi Jr. so important? He was the collector of the first sample. He lost his job and all credibility in his field due to Braun’s first case and remarks there after. I can only assume he probably got a lot of hate mail as well from fans. His life is ruined. Despite the fact, that everyone knows Braun lied and ruined this guy’s life, he’s not suing. Good guy.

Why am I spending so much time talking about this guy? Well, only one other media outletreally has taken the time to write an article on him. The media instead is choosing to go after Braun and talk about how he lied to us all. After he “proved his innocence” the first time, the media gave him all the coverage in the world to lambast the collector and speak his piece. Now after he’s lied, the media is only talking about him lying. Why aren’t they going after him for ruining some guy’s life? Laurenzi has refused interviews since, but the media could do a better job. The media is so fickle with how it chooses to portray the story. I assure you, when Braun shows back up for training camp next season; it will all be behind him. There will be no mention of the fact that Braun ruined another mans life and profited off it.

Concussions in the NFL (Ben Utecht vs The Cincinnati Bengals)

Ten years ago in the NFL concussions were not considered a big deal. In fact if you got a concussion, you sat out a few plays until you weren’t dizzy, and then you went right back in the game. Furthermore, if you didn’t go back in, teammates, players, and coaches looked down on you for it.

Flash-forward to the present, concussions are no longer just a booboo you shake off. They are now in the forefront of sports health discussions everywhere. It started with science showing that numerous hits to the head can bring an onset of early dementia. It went further with science showing that concussions (which are termed as bruises to the brain) that are caused by blunt force trauma to the head can lead to dementia as well.

I don’t want to discuss the overall process the NFL and the NFLPA have gone through to help with safety, rather I want to discuss a recent case where a player who had concussion issues, won a case against the team he played for.

Ben Utecht a former tight end of the Cincinnati Bengals was one of their big free agent acquisitions in 2008 season. He was riddled with injuries and had a concussion his first year. In 2009 on the third play of the season Utecht was nailed as he caught a pass and was carted off the field. I happened to be at that game and was sitting a few rows up from where it happened. It was scary moment, he wasn’t moving at all. Utecht did not play the rest of the season and ended up being let go by the team after the season and retired after that.

Utecht filed a grievance with the league for the rest of his “playing time” salary from the Cincinnati Bengals. He claimed he had been medically cleared to play, but the Bengals refused to play him, thus he could not earn parts of his contract. A few weeks ago, the courts ruled in his favor rewarding him all the money he would have received from his playing time. Utecht was able to show clear proof that the Bengals were negligent in the healing process. This means they didn't take the proper steps to help him heal, because of this he was unable to play and earn his money.

Utecht suffers from memory loss due to the concussions he's had. The Bengals may not have known how to work through the healing process, but at least they did not play him and risk further damage to Utecht.  Perhaps they feared the reprisals should he end up with concussion from a hit that caused debilitating life circumstance?

It was around this time the NFL was getting bad press about concussions and how teams did not care and threw their players into the fire. The league did not have a clear concussion recovery timeline, diagnoses system, or overall plan to deal with them.

Since then, the NFL has created a procedure for diagnoses, healing, and not allowing a player on the field until they can pass a concussion test.  The new system allows a teams to be cleared of any legal liability should a player suffer after clearing the test. (Assuming the team’s doctors did everything right.)

Despite all this, I still believe that in years to come, the NFL will have a waiver that needs to be signed by players when they first enter the league. It would waive the player’s rights to sue a team or the league later for any head related trauma unless they can prove negligence.  There are a lot of players who support the idea, stating that players know what they are doing when they join this league. These players include star running back Maurice Jones Drew, future hall of fame linebacker Brian Urlacher, and four time pro-bowl defensive end Justin Smith.

A look into Copyright issues in Sports

Anyone here seen the Heisman Trophy? Did you know there is a picture of legendary wide receiver Desmond Howard who played for the Michigan Wolverines doing the iconic pose? Did you know the man who took the picture is now suing the pants off a long list of companies for copyright infringement?

If you stopped me in the streets and asked me if this picture was copyrighted, I’d have to say yes. Well up until a few years ago I would have been wrong. The man, who shot it Brian Musack, finally copyrighted the picture, which is over 20 years old. Since then he has gone after Sports Illustrated for using the copyrighted material in their magazine without his permission, and Desmond Howard himself for selling signed copies of the picture without his permission.

Why did he not copyright the picture sooner? Bad legal counsel told him the fact that it was published in a major magazine with his name on the photo credit was enough to give him a copyright. Apparently that is not true.

In 2011, Musack was asked by Howard to sell him the rights to the picture, but as stated on PetaPix in an article, Musack asked for over 200 grand and Howard never bought the rights. Since then Howard has sold copies of the picture from his website.

Musack has a case if he were suing from the time of the copyright until now. Musack is asking apparently for backpay for issues of Sports Illustrated from years ago. Another company involved with this ad was Nissan and they are also being sued. He’s asking for money from Getty Images from years back.

This case with Musack reminds me of a case a professor back in undergrad told us about. A 3M employee created PostItNotes to use at his own desk while working for 3M. They were just for his personal use; he wasn’t bringing it to the company as a product. One of the big wigs saw the PostItNotes and loved the idea. 3M began to manufacture them. The creator sued 3M for stealing his idea and giving him no compensation for it. Interesting thing about this case was the man never filed for a patent. In the end the Supreme Court made a ruled in 3M’s favor. Not because the man didn’t file a patent, rather because the man created the PostItNotes on company time with company material. While the two cases are far from similar, for some reason they remind me of each other.

I don’t see how the court can award him anything for the time passed. I would understand the court awarding him money since the copyright but not before it. I feel bad for Musack because he got bad legal advice, but he’s suing for something he shouldn’t get. I would assume the statutes of limitations have run out.