GMC Never Say Never Trophy

I don’t know how many of you noticed, but being a League Manager for an ESPN Fantasy Football League, I certainly did.

ESPN has started allowing advertisers to auto create and auto assign trophies in your league. OK, I can only speak for my league, but I am making the assumption that it applies to others as well.

In fact I found a thread on a Detroit message board which mentioned this very topic, so I know it is happening in other leagues across ESPN.

Now being slightly protective of my league, my friends and my settings; I sent ESPN Customer Care an email asking the following.

 

• Is this an allowable campaign?
• Who is doing this?
• How can I make it stop?

 

Here is their reply . . .

 

And they have the nerve to call themselves Customer Care? Really?
Somebody paid them a lot of money to be powerless pawns in an advertising scheme.  They obviously did not give any consideration to their customers by accepting this campaign.  At the very least, they should have sent an email and made a league setting to allow or disallow advertising campaigns.

 

I’m not against ads, but these auto created/assigned trophies get assigned a star or point value which depending on how a league use them, can really screw up point totals and prize awards.
I like the ESPN format and they way it is run.  But this gets me thinking about how much I want advertisers to mess with my league, teams and trophies.
ESPN has opened Pandora’s box with this campaign.
Hopefully ESPN will fix this by giving the keys back to their true customers instead of advertisers because if they don’t, it can, and will be, a big problem.

De Who Dats Will Set the Record…

For most Super Bowl Revenue Generated.

That is my prediction.

The Colts will ultimately prevail winning the actual game. After all, they have proven more than once that they only need 15 minutes to beat anybody.

I give the Saints 30 minutes of life. Tops.

The Colts, just like Gilbert Arenas, have too many weapons…
And the biggest and best is Peyton.

But, with all the hype I’ve seen and heard on the Internet about “Who Dat” and rights, and royalty, and Money, I believe that the Saints fans alone will solely responsible for setting a new revenue record.

The record for “Ad Revenue” (selling advertising slots) is approximately $206 million. Judging by the fact that the networks have had to lower their prices this year, I doubt that will happen.

However, I believe, the $125 million merchandise record is in jeopardy. You see, its not just the “Super Bowl” label, it is the aints New Orleans Saints going to the Super Bowl. Now we are not only talking, and buying, super bowl memorabilia, we are buying collector items.

A quick look on Ebay (EBAY)for “New Orleans Saints” produces over 20,000 items.
Amazon (AMZN) had nearly 14,000.

And this of course does not take count all the official NFL stores, and pop-up merchandise stands now populating the great state of Florida.

Who knows when this will happen again.

So enjoy it, buy the collector items now before the Super Bowl, because they will not be worth quite as much this coming Monday morning.

But hey, I’ve been wrong before, and if by some miraculous chance the Saints do pull this off, the prices and sales will go through the roof and all you true Saints fans better keep an extra collector item or two safely sealed inside the original wrapping.

But most importantly, turn on the game and enjoy the entertainment. If anybody can give the Colts and Peyton a run for their money, it is the defensive genius of Gregg Williams.

And don’t worry about the game being a dud, we all know that the super bowl brings out some of the more creative ads from various companies such as these two finalist clips from Doritos. So grab your drinks, food, and even some good friends, turn on the TV this Super Bowl Sunday and Enjoy!

I know I will be watching.