By Alex J.Walling
 The ABA (American Basketball Association) came to Halifax this weekend. The all-star game and the talent level of the players were very good but it could have been so much better had Halifax equipped themselves with people who know how to deal with the media.
Sure, I liked that I saw this weekend from the ABA. To bad it wasn’t promoted the right way. Proper promotion would have meant a much higher attendance.
Here’s the great, good, bad and ugly of this ABA experiment.
The Great: Joe Newman the CEO of the ABA. He’s their best asset. He’ll talk about the success and failures of his league. It isn’t all rosy but I found him a straight shooter. I got more out of him in one hour than in two months from the Halifax group. This man has been around basketball, teams folding and teams succeeding and has witnessed the launch of many successful franchises. Surely, the people who want this team for Halifax could have tapped into his wealth of knowledge.
Joe Newman should have been here from the first day that we heard of the fledging Halifax ‘could have a team in the ABA’. He would have brought instant credibility and helped sell the game, the ABA and maybe the All-Star game. Instead we got a bunch of amateurs who had no knowledge in dealing with the media and that inexperience, in my opinion cost them greatly.
The Good: The all-star game, the players, the skill events. There is no doubt some of these guys can play basketball. And, why not? We hear about the top basketball league in the world in the NBA. But the fact is there are so many good if not great basketball players who simply can’t make the numbers game of the NBA and they are available to a league like the ABA.
Look at all the colleges that play the sport. Every year hundreds if not thousands of college kids, many who play in the NCAA division one bracket, become available but don’t make the pros.
Let’s not forget, b-ball unlike the NFL or NHL has a very small roster. Often times the second round NBA draft choice doesn’t make it. That leaves many good people and lots of those are playing in the ABA. The different skill events (3-point shooting, the dunk contest, etc) on Saturday night was certainly entertaining.
The Bad: The Halifax group who put on this event and I don’t included majority owner, Andre Levingston. He didn’t come out of hiding until last week. From the beginning those in charge have blown it. Why Levingston became such a ‘mysterious’ commodity is not known. We were told that this Halifax group wanted to put up Jad Cynagoric a well known high school and college player as the face of the team. Bad move, she is pretty but, she along with the other person who handled the Halifax franchise, to be kind, have very little experience in dealing with this kind of media.
The Ugly: The failure of this group in dealing with the media has hurt them. Instead of selling the ABA their unique brand of the game, the 3-d play, the 13th man, etc, etc, they’ve made key mistakes and that took away from their message. They’ve been out of their league media wise since their first announcement on September 18, 2006.
Those involved (Jad Cynagoric and Paul Riley) may have played the game but being an amateur athlete and now trying to sell a business to a public and asking for their dollars ($upport) is something else.
They should have hired a P.R. firm or marketing person. That would have helped them so much.
In fact, both of them got more defensive than any other group that I have covered and I’ve been at this a few years starting in 1965.
Their total lack of media relation skills hurt this weekend’s gate.
From the opening bell those involved in dealing with us blew it. At the first media conference (Sept 18th) they refused to answer questions, referred us at least 5-6 times to the ABA web site to the point I suggested he bring in the ‘web-master’ so we can get some questions answered. It went downhill from there.
At that initial meeting I asked if this group had a ‘press release’. The answer was ‘we sent you one’. What we had was the ‘invitation’ to the media conference. They didn’t know the difference between an invitation and a ‘media release’ or handout which usually follows the press conference outlining the announcement. Angela Hill of the Metro centre could have helped them but I bet they were too proud or arrogant to ask. It ranks as one of the worst press conferences I’ve ever attended. Certainly the worst this century.
This group’s second media attempt was actually worst than the first, if that’s possible. They called a media affair (Nov. 27) to ‘announce the name of the team’? Guess what? There was no announcement. Nada, nyet, zilch. Many TV cameramen were not pleased.
Then, when they finally made their ‘name the team’ splash there was no media conference, no unveiling! Amazing. And they want your money, your support!
This is not high school or minor ball; these guys want to be in the big leagues in so far as this city is concerned. They want to be like the Mooseheads, former AHL teams, and the Windjammers.
I wouldn’t have them on the Gong Show.
They made a big deal that the ABA game was to be on the Score, shown across Canada and it would be a sell out. 2500 fans after two months of promotion isn’t a sell out. In fact if that is all they can generate after months of ‘talking it up’ I wonder what is in store this fall.
And what happened to the game on National TV? It didn’t happen.
Did they tell the media about the game being cancelled? No, they tried to pull an Ernie Fage and when confronted, I got one of the weakest excuses ever which was: “we went after a global audience by podcasting it” I tried to download the podcast and gave up after having to answer a million questions to get it.
I wonder how many people watched the podcast, let’s say in Sri Lanka, or Moscow and how will that be converted into selling tickets for the Rainmen?
This past Friday they held a media session with the ABA players and some people from the league including CEO Newman. The announcement read that the event was to be hosted by Farley Flex of Canadian Idol.
Guess who didn’t show up?
I can live with Farley not showing up but it would have been nice to have the moderator (Riley) acknowledge the fact he was not there. I mean if it’s a big deal that he is coming to the event, and these guys take the time to feature him on the media release, then he is worth a mention, right?
In fact a first for me took place at that media conference. I asked Halifax Rainmen majority owner Levingston who was at the head table, why the mystery over his involvement as the majority owner.
Now I was maybe 5-6 feet away from the man in a direct line of sight. Before he got a chance to answer the question in came, P.R. want to be, Riley, who blurted a bunch of things in regards to his involvement and Jad’s role etc, etc.
It was a rude, ignorant and totally unprofessional act by Riley to interrupt the majority owner. I let Riley ramble on, and re-asked the question to Levingston, who had no problem with it.
I have never been at a media question and ask a person a direct question and had someone else cut in.
Again, Riley’s answer was defensive. He also pointed out that he doesn’t believe in wars with the media saying to the effect ‘they buy ink by the barrel and we don’t want to fight them.’ All he’s done is, at least to some of us, is lose the focus on what his message is supposed to be. Also his attempts to maneuver the media or picks conflicts are pathetic.
He made himself look foolish, amateurish and bush league in that media session. In fact the CEO even commented on the fact that his answer(s) was defensive.
I have no problem with any media person putting a ‘spin’ on things. Spins are viewpoints as seen through a different set of eyes. Spin is different from throwing ridiculous facts and hoping to get away with it.
Two facts come to mind. Riley stated to the effect that “we know that Halifax is a walk up town and 80% of the sales are done in this fashion.”
Excuse me, a great line and it suited Halifax cause because ticket sales were very slow and they would wish for an 80% walk up but where are the facts?
You mean to tell me that 80% of the Moosehead crowd is walk up? Don’t think so.
You mean 80% of the Dolly Parton and George Jones concerts that I saw in the last 14 months were 80% walk up. Did the Junos last spring have an 80% walk up? The answers are no, no, no and again, no.
No way. It was a stupid comment without facts.
Both Riley and Cynagoric were defensive in the radio sports open line shows that they appeared on and in the three press conferences that I took in.
Conclusion: They get an E for effort but a bigger “E” for execution which was awful and that is unfortunate because the ABA has some unique features which should have been sold and Newman could have sold them had be been introduced to us on day one.
Let these Rainmen (please change that name!) look at what the Halifax Windjammers did and learn from the only other pro b-ball team to come here.
Without any testing, without any all-star game and without anyone ever hearing of that league (World Basketball league), the Jammers drew a near sell out on their first night (9700 fans). When the WBL did reward the Jammers their all-star game on July 10, 1991 was a sell out.
When this bunch that can’t promote straight, figures out how the Jammers did it they will be on the track to doing it right.
It can and has been done. But they need help, lots of help in the media/pr department.
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