Sports Advertising Gone Wrong
The Fox Sports Network 1 created an ad campaign called “Pick a Side” about the New York Knicks. Surprisingly, Fox Sports Network 1 (FS1) does not have media rights for the Knicks. Madison Square Garden Network and ESPN Radio 98.7 have the media rights to televise and air the Knicks games on the radio. So, the question is why FS1 would develop an ad campaign criticizing the Knicks? What was the FS1 motive? Hopefully, I can provide my opinion regarding this bizarre ad campaign.
Bodner & Becker (2017) of The New York Daily News reported that FS1 on October 3, 2017, the beginning of preseason for the New York Knicks, FS1 setup subway wraps on the Time Square to Grand Central shuttle to ask fans to choose a side “Hopeless and “Hopeful.” The campaign consisted of several outrageous signs placed outside and inside the subway. Davis (2017) reported that FS1 ad campaign included the following signs:
1. Picture of Tim Hardaway and Joakim Noah with the word Hopeless in between both
players.
2. Nothing will change until Dolan sells the team.
3. Sit here if you’re hopeless.
4. The high point of the last 25 years was the movie, Eddie.
5. Can you fire an owner?
6. Should have traded for Kyrie.
7. Sit here if you blame Phil.
8. Sit here if you blame Melo.
9. Sit here if you blame Dolan.
10. Porzingis is the truth.
11. Kristaps Porzingis is a unicorn sent back in time to show us how basketball will be played
in the future.
12. Porzingis was designed in a lab.
13. Get excited.
14. Hardaway Jr. is expensive, but the kid can ball.
FS1 displayed the signs in the Knicks uniform colors orange and blue. The positive signs were in the color blue, and the negative signs were orange. It has been reported that the Knicks’ owner James Dolan was infuriated and directly called the CEO of Fox, Rupert Murdoch to complain about the ads (Zagoria, 2017). FS1 released an apology ‘Today, FS1 featured statements on a New York City subway car intended to reflect the distinct emotions and opinions of passionate sports fans’ the statement indicated. ‘We regret the tone and are removing the content in its entirety’ (New York Post, 2017).
The burning question that many people want to know is why did FS1 do a campaign on the Knicks. There has been an explanation that FS1 was highlighting hot topics within sports like NBA super teams, are Odell Beckham Jr. end zone antics a distraction to his team, the Kyrie Irving trade and the Knicks. I have not seen the ads for the other hot topics, but the Knicks ads were very edgy and very troubling. If the FS1 purpose were to reflect the opinions of sports fans, it would have served them better to have actual fans giving their testimonies instead of FS1 making the statements. I’m quite sure many Knicks fans want James Dolan to sell the team; however, when FS1 makes this proclamation it’s a significant problem because media is supposed to report the news not be part of the story. FS1 has crossed the lines of being neutral. These ads were very negative like political advertisements. Negative ads are used to reflect a rival product, service or candidate in a negative way.
Negative marketing portrays competitors in an adverse way to make an advertiser look superior, this type of advertising occurs in politics and business (Robertson, n.d.) Negative advertising usually tells the consumer not to do something for the most part. Smoking has been the target of negatives adds because society wants consumers not to smoke cigarettes. I could remember in the 80’s public service commercials telling people not to use drugs. These negative ads tried to deter people from using drugs. Of course, the numerous political commercials that depict the worst sides of candidates. However, I can’t remember a commercial that was very negative towards a professional sports team. There have been several sports commercials that were bad but not offensive to a group. Most sports ads are very positive and reflect a bright future for a sports team. Considering the situation with athletes not standing for the national anthem in the National Football League (NFL) I would expect special interest groups to start posting commercials talking negatively about the NFL and their current stance regarding the national anthem.
Negative advertising can be done in a positive light for a company; however, Robinson (n.d.) reported that when negative advertising is done improperly, it can become devastating for a company, especially if the business has to offer an apology publicly for their mistakes. FS1 experienced this feeling when they had to publicly apologize to the Knicks for their ad campaign in the New York City subway.
FSI has been in operation as a 24-hour sports programming since August 17, 2013 and the company is trying to build their brand and be competitive with ESPN which is the leader in providing sports programming on television, radio and digital media. FS1 has a long way to go to have the same viewership numbers as ESPN. In the first quarter of 2017, statistics showed that FS1 averaged 148,000 viewers live-plus-same-day audiences in total day and 300,000 viewers in prime-time; however, ESPN averaged 930,000 viewers in total day and 2.24 million in prime-time (Crupi, 2017). FS1 is struggling to compete with ESPN for viewers.
As FS1 tries to compete with ESPN, it appears that FS1 marketing staff felt that creating an ad campaign in New York City would bolster their ratings and viewership. So, they develop the campaign to include the Knicks because fans in New York are very passionate about the Knicks. The team sells out the garden every game averaging over 19,000 fans. Also, the Knicks have thousands of fans that do not attend the game but are probably even more fanatical than the fans that attend the game. The bottom line, FS1 thought they could feed off the frustrations of Knicks fans to increase their ratings. The problem as I previously mentioned, they don’t televise any Knicks games. So, I'm not sure how FS1 was going to parlay the “Pick a Side” campaign to increase their viewership, but maybe the real purpose of the campaign was to raise their brand awareness. Fans were talking about the campaign but just as quick as FS1 took down the ads, Knicks fans stopped talking about FS1. So, in the end, FS1 embarrassed themselves and Knicks fans will continue to pick being hopeful regarding the New York Knicks.
References
Bodner, B. & Becker, J. (2017). See it: FS1 ad campaign asking subway riders to ‘pick a side’ about ‘hopeless’ or ‘hopeful’ Knicks being shut down. Retrieved from
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/hopeless-knicks-greet-nyc-subway-riders-due-fs1-ad-campaign-article-1.3538210
Crupi, A. (2017). FS1 to kick off its first morning show, ‘First Things First,’ in September. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/special-report-tv-upfront/fs1-kick-things-first-morning-show/309018/
Davis, S. (2017). A campaign calling for the ‘hopeless’ Knicks to be sold was plastered all over a New York City subway. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/anti-knicks-new-york-city-subway-campaign-2017-10
New York Post. (2017). FS1 to remove controversial Knicks subway ads. Retrieved from http://nypost.com/2017/10/03/fs1-to-remove-controversial-knicks-subway-ads/
Robinson, T. (n.d.). Ethics of negative advertising. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/ethics-negative-advertising-26128.html
Rovell, D. [Darren Rovell]. (2017, October 3). NYC Subway ads bashing Knicks to be taken down: http://es.pn/2xYdW69 [Tweet][Photograph] Retrieved from https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/915347576102248448/photo/1
Zagoria, A. (2017 October 3) Knicks’ owner Jim Dolan furious over FS1 ‘Hopeless’ ads: Source. Retrieved from http://www.zagsblog.com/2017/10/03/knicks-owner-jim-dolan-furious-fsi-hopeless-ads-source/
