Sports

The one thing missing from Rockies games

Jeromey Balderrama

Spring is here, and with the beautiful weather comes the start of the baseball season.  The Rockies had their Home Opener today (which they won), and with it I wanted to re-tell a story from 2 & 1/2 years ago and re-iterate my plea for the Rockies to incorporate an important aspect of the game day experience into their game:

Back in 2007, when the Rockies were on their historic hot-streak, we went to the last game of the season.  This turned out to be a pivotal game, which required the Rockies to win and the Padres to lose, which led to that 1-game playoff for the Wild Card.  The atmosphere was amazing, and being a loyal Broncos fan I turned to my tailgating kit to help us prepare for this game.  We brought out our well-used grill to cook some steaks, when we were approached by stadium security (who was an off-duty police officer). I was shocked to find out that Tailgating at Rockies Games are not allowed!  The officer was really nice about it, and even made an editorial statement to the effect of “I don’t agree with the rule, but I need to enforce it.”  He let us finish grilling our steaks, but made us put our tailgating equipment away.  Sure that security had it wrong, I turned to their web site for the definitive word, and sure enough tailgating is not allowed:

Tailgating is not permitted in any Rockies operated parking lot. Persons may not consume alcohol in the parking lots, including inside their vehicles.

There are a lot of high expectations for the Rockies this year. Most analysts say playoffs are a given for the Blake Street Bombers, with the possibility of going deep into October.  Rockies Management: do your part to make sure that your talented team have the passionate fans they deserve – allow tailgating for at least some games.  It doesn’t have to be all 80 remaining home games, but at least the big ones: holidays, fan-favorite rivals, the inter-league games, and the late September games – that’s all we need.

It’s not like tailgating at baseball games are unheard of. I went by the Padres ballpark a few years ago, and they had a whole parking lot devoted to tailgating – sound familiar Broncos fans?  I find it funny that if you do a search for “Rockies Tailgating” you’ll find a ton of product licensed by Major League Baseball, yet you’re not allowed to use it next to their stadium.

Seriously Rockies Front Office, let’s bring Tailgating in some form to Coors Field. If you need to rope up part of the lot and charge a little more, so be it.

Hate the BCS? Take out your frustrations on Twitter

Jeromey Balderrama

Social media tools are changing the way that we communicate and interact.  Unfortunately for a much-despised BCS (College Football Bowl Championship Series), it makes it all the more easy of playoff fans to take swipes at their enemy.

If you don’t follow college football, here summary: The BCS is a computer-based system that creates the official college football rankings based on a complex set of stats (# of wins, conference position, strength of schedule, etc).  The results are used to determine who will play in the national championship game.  The problem with this is that many times teams with 1 losses have been placed in the championship game, while undefeated teams get shut out.  This year is especially contentious, as there are 6 undefeated teams, but the BCS has pretty much come out and told TCU, Boise State and Cincinnati that they have no shot for the championship game.

With the success of March Madness in College Basketball, combined with the fact that Division 2 & 3 football have a playoff, it’s puzzling why College Football hasn’t adopted a playoff system. One of the popular playoff alternatives is "the Wetzel plan", which puts together a criteria for a 16-team playoff.

Earlier this week, I saw the story in Deadspin how the BCS has employed a new PR firm, whose first actions was to establish a Twitter and Facebook presence in this Social Web World.  This makes enough sense, but they’ve committed two serious errors in judgment: 1) Forgetting that they’re a controversial and much-despised, and would likely have more critics than fans; 2) Actually engaging their critics by baiting them into debate, without fully participating in the conversation.

Hilarity ensues: For the past few days, it’s been a fun game to do a search by the BCS’s username: @InsideTheBCS and see them make a straw man claim, then watch their critics go to town on them without any response.  Check it out below:

bcs

What’s been great is that the critics have actually been presenting good arguments.  There are a few personal attacks here and there, but for the most part the responses have been well-reasoned (for as much as you can be in 140 characters or less).  The problem is that @InsideTheBCS doesn’t really respond to any of the valid points, it pretty much continues to make their contentious, canned responses that they’re given phrased differently.  They do respond to some users, but mainly when they have the canned answer in their wheelhouse.

Let this be a social media lesson to brands/organizations, especially unpopular ones: Unless you’re willing to engage in an authentic conversation with your critics, then controversial groups should probably stay away from social media.  Having your PR Firm running this interference is only hurting you in the court of public opinion.  Worse yet, it’s banding your enemies together.  While I’ve always hated the BCS, I really didn’t care much about this issue until three days ago – when it became entertaining to have this conversation.  Something tells me that the people doing PR for the BCS are having a very lousy week.

EA’s Brass Stones

Jeromey Balderrama

I was playing Madden on my X-box the other day (but let’s face it, that’s all I ever do with my X-box from August to Christmas), when after choosing my play I saw the following on my pre-snap screen.

DSC00382

Wow EA, talk about ballsy.  Is it not enough that Madden is the most popular sports franchise of all time, and that suckers like me continue to shell out $60 each season for the equivalence of roster updates?  Now you’ve resorted to showing me ads on the game that I paid for that obstruct the game experience?  Thanks jerks!

Look, I’m fine with you inserting ads into the game where it’s realistically done so.  I’ve come to accept the “Sprint Recap”, and the “Snickers Chompion Coin Toss” for two reasons: 1) It doesn’t interfere with my actual game play; 2) Because this is done during regular NFL games and is a sad reflection of the level of sponsorship in the NFL.  The league is pretty bad when it comes to in-game ads, but I don’t see ads streaming across the jumbotron before the QB is going to snap the ball.

Seriously EA?  I understand you’re not a charity, but there has to be better ways to get revenue than this.  Quit killing your golden goose, or before you know it it’ll stop laying eggs.

Mile High Turncoats Continued

Jeromey Balderrama

Last month I wrote a post reacting to the number of Broncos season ticket holders that sold their tickets to Cowboy fans, calling them “traitors” and “turncoats”.  Well it may have taken a Steelers game to get other people to notice, but it looks like I’m not alone.

Someone wrote a guest post on Mile High Report (an awesome Broncos blog, by the way) about whether Broncos Country is for sale. The next day, the Denver Post’s Mike Klis responds in a Mailbag story about someone who posed those same concerns.

If you didn’t see the Broncos/Steelers game on Monday Night, then you missed out on seeing our stadium inundated with those Tacky Terrible Towels twirling around.  The Cowboys have been called “Americas Team”, but several media pundits have suggested that the Steelers are truly Americas Team, given recent statistical fan surveys.  You go back to the formula of hosting teams that don’t play in your city very often, coupled with a large and passionate fanbase as Pittsburgh, on top of that having it on Monday night when it becomes difficult for some fans to attend: a perfect storm of neutrality formed at Mile High on Monday.

Klis actually went to the Broncos COO to get a comment, and they simply responded with “Frankly there’s nothing we can do about it. Our ability to control that is nonexistent and would be illegal to do so” [Denver Post].

He’s right, but season ticket holders: that doesn’t make the act of selling your tickets to opposing fans any less traitorous.

After our original buyer for our 2nd set of tickets was forced to back out, Bethany and I had to put our money where our mouth was and sell the tickets at a loss to ensure that Steelers fans didn’t get them.  I realize that not everyone may be in a financial position to do that, but if you’re looking at your tickets as a profit-making experience, then maybe you shouldn’t be owning season tickets.

I’m just glad that we don’t have any more Monday Night home games on the schedule. I loathe Monday Night games at home.  It may be exciting for the players, and I love wearing my jersey on Mondays when your team is playing, but it sucks for fans going to the game.  First off, you have to make an effort to leave work early just to get there in time.  While you’re driving, not only are you battling “Game Day Traffic”, but you’re now dealing with “Typical Weekday Rush Hour” traffic.  No matter how early you leave, you don’t get any time to tailgate.  I could be wrong, but it seems like everyone working at the stadium on Monday Nights are not the typical people that work there on Sundays – I’m talking about everyone from the bus drivers to concession stand workers.  The experience just seems cheapened.  Once the game ends you deal with traffic, hoping you can get home before the clock strikes Tuesday and you have to be at work in 6 hours (and I can’t imagine how horrible it is for those on Eastern Time). I don’t mean to come across as ungrateful for the opportunity to watch my team live, but I’ll take a Sunday afternoon game over a Monday Night home game any time of year.

This isn’t helping in redeeming Soccer

Jeromey Balderrama

I understand that people are trying to validate soccer as an up-and-coming sport in the US, but the New Mexico Lobos aren’t helping soccer’s case with this (hopefully this video isn’t taken down).

Maybe Elizabeth Lambert is trying to challenge Rodney Harrison as the “dirtiest player” (oh wait, Rodney’s retired, so now it’s Hines Ward).

Geez.