Fallout from Michael Jordan hoax
Utah Flash owner Brandt Andersen’s
Michael Jordan hoax is truly testing the old adage that “there’s no
such thing as bad publicity … “
But that’s only half of the quote,
credited to Irish author and dramatist Brendan Behan. The rest of
it? ” … except your own obituary.”
Only time will tell if Andersen’s
marketing ploy will help his team. Many are saying that promises
over several months that former NBA superstar Michael Jordan would
appear at the McKay Events Center — followed on Monday by the
appearance of a YouTube video purportedly depicting Jordan at an
Orem restaurant — have damaged the Flash’s business reputation
beyond repair.
On Tuesday, the fallout forced the
National Basketball Development League to issue an apology.
Outraged fans posted harsh criticism of the hoax on Andersen’s
blog. A video produced on YouTube offered T-shirts for $15 with the
Flash logo and a caption reading, “the Flash Suck.”
For months, Andersen had been touting
a Michael Jordan-Bryon Russell one-on-one matchup during halftime
of Monday’s first home game of the season. Promoting the event as a
fundraiser, he promised to pay $100,000 to a charity chosen by the
winner.
Then on Monday, Russell showed up at
the McKay Center, but not Michael Jordan. Only the Jordan
look-alike from the restaurant video was there with his
“bodyguards.”
And then the crowd booed.
Andersen claims he had been in contact
with various people who claimed “closeness” to Jordan. “I even told
them if they did not want Michael to play they could promote the
potential for another event just by having him here,” Andersen
wrote in his blog. “I knew I would not know if MJ was going to
attend until a few hours before game time. I never received the
call indicating he would not attend.”
A spokesperson for Jordan, however,
said she was never contacted by anyone in the Utah Flash
organization about MJ playing Bryon Russell in a one-on-one match
for charity.
Estee Portnoy has worked with Jordan
since 1996, handling his day-to-day business matters and often
coordinating his charitable efforts.
”After his Hall of Fame speech [in
September], Michael Jordan had a phone conversation with Bryon
Russell in which Michael told Bryon he was not going to play in a
one-on-one match,” Portnoy told the Herald on Tuesday. “It is
extremely disheartening that the Utah Flash misled its fans into
believing that Michael Jordan had any intention of making an
appearance. The fans deserve better.”
Portnoy said she had been fielding
calls about the hoax for most of the day and had spoken to Andersen
as well.
The hoax was a hot topic Tuesday on
Utah sports talk radio and on mega-sports Web sites like ESPN.com
and Yahoo. com.
On Monday night, some 7,542 anxious
basketball fans — about 5,000 more than an average night — filled
the McKay Events Center hoping for the appearance of “His
Airness.”
They were disappointed, and free Flash
T-shirts were not enough to mollify them. After realizing Jordan
was a no-show, many fans threw the T-shirts back on the floor and
left the arena.
”We messed up the way we executed it,”
Andersen said. “We thought it would be funny, but it really was
not.”
Andersen claimed the Flash had already
sold 95 percent of capacity at the McKay Center before releasing
the fake Jordan video. The look-alike appeared to be eating at
Mimi’s Cafe in Orem.
According to ESPN, Andersen said that
he had had several conversations with Jordan about coming.
”We’ve had some conversations,” ESPN
reported Andersen as saying, “and I think there’s a good
possibility that he’s going to be here. He’ll say no he’s not. If
you ask him straight on he’ll say no he won’t. If you ask his
people
they’ll say no he won’t. You know
what, I’ve probably said too much. But I think there’s a good
chance he might be here. Let’s leave it at that.”
Those claims, along with Andersen’s
claim that he had someone staking out a private airport in case
Jordan showed up, are seen as pure fabrications by skeptics, just
like the rest of Monday night’s promised halftime match-up between
Jordan and Russell.
Andersen posted an apology to fans on
his blog, writing that he was sorry if anyone was offended. As for
the Jordan look-alike, Andersen indicated that was the backup plan
if Jordan didn’t come.
”We wanted to test the strength and
effectiveness of viral media by putting him out in Provo with
bodyguards, and some hype,” Andersen wrote in his blog. The video
was not supposed to be leaked to local media, Andersen wrote.
IPV Marketing of Provo, a
telemarketing company, was hired by the Flash to help sell tickets
for Monday’s game.
It received the video from the Flash
marketing department and released it. According to IPV, the company
was not aware of the fake.
”Frankly, we were quite excited about
it because we had no reason to believe it wouldn’t be him,” said
IPV’s John Erbstoesser. “And then, of course, we discovered that
the video is fake. We were excited just like anyone, sure, but we
don’t want people to perceive that we were part of a video campaign
to pretend that Michael Jordan was in town.”
As part of his apology Andersen said
he would honor Monday night’s game tickets for any future Flash
game. On Tuesday, he said the Flash ticket office had handled
refunds as well as requests for tickets.
Andersen had offered $100,000 for a
charitable donation to the winner of Jordan-Russell one-on-one
game. When asked about the status of any donation now, Andersen was
noncommittal: “The reality of the way it took place, this ended up
going much differently than what we expected. It went terribly
wrong. It was a real offer. I was more than willing to donate
$100,000 to the winner, but the execution of the way that it went,
only Bryon Russell was there.”
Russell, according to Jordan’s
spokesperson, knew that Jordan wasn’t coming because of the phone
call between the two former players.
But the Flash managed to keep the
suspense going through the halftime show, right up until the Jordan
look-alike was discovered.
Fans taken in by the deception
have vented on Andersen’s blog.
“Nobody likes to be the butt of a
joke — especially 5,000 paying customers, some with hopeful kids (I
had two). The concept was fun, but it went way too far. The only
shameful part to this charade was the fact that you pumped up the
ticket prices 3-fold over the phone for an event in which you guys
knew you couldn’t deliver. Sure, it’s a minor league team — this
stuff happens. But let me watch this joke unfold at normal ticket
prices. I think you’re going to be apologizing with your wallet
(including my pumped up tickets)!” — chrisplarz
”I called a sales rep who worked for
the Flash and he sold me 6 tickets for $120, when I got the tickets
the face value was $10.50 each. I also told him I had lower bowl
tickets to the Jazz/Spurs game and he told me I would not be
disappointed if I went to the Flash game. I had already bought my
tickets when the Daily Herald reported it to be a hoax. So I
overpaid for my Flash tickets and missed a great Jazz game–Thanks
for nothing!” — scr
”How about you pay for the 300 dollar
half season tickets we had to buy just to get into tonight’s game?
That sounds fair seeing how you didn’t have to fork out any of that
$100,000 to any charity. Terrible TERRIBLE HOAX!!!!” — Craig and
Jennifer Evans
”The fact that you were ‘testing’
viral marketing on the people of the community, basically, that
seems to me that you were trying fool as many people as you could
without blatantly lying … Really classless and dishonest. I can’t
believe so many people bought it, but that really just shows that
you have a responsibility as an advertiser to be forthright.” —
kenny
NBDL President Dan Reed issued
this statement on Tuesday:
”On behalf of the NBA Development
League, I apologize to our fans for a UtahFlash promotion that
never should have happened. This promotion was clearly
ill-conceived.
Brandt Andersen, the Utah Flash owner,
has apologized to the Flash fans and has reached out to Michael
Jordan to apologize to him as well.
”The Flash will refund the price of
the tickets and has also offered free tickets to an upcoming Flash
game to everyone who was in attendance
at Monday night’s game.”