Crystallizing the Cause

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/02/22/sports-rush-a-crystal-clear-cause/https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/02/22/sports-rush-a-crystal-clear-cause/

Great performers can steal the show without even trying. Billy Crystal did it Monday night.
His opportunity came at the Nancy Lieberman Charities Dream Ball. The event teemed with celebrities from the worlds of sport and entertainment. Hall of Famers like Deion Sanders and Ralph Sampson came. Local media did interviews on the red carpet. ESPN’s Jay Harris hosted.
The show wasn’t about Billy Crystal per se. And the renowned entertainer didn’t make it about him. He made the night in a different way. It wasn’t because of the way he showed his talent. It was because of how he showed his perspective.

We interviewed him before the event began. When I asked him why it was meaningful for him to be there that night, he didn’t talk about being recognized for the work he’s done (Crystal received the Lifetime Achievement Award). He talked about the cause and about how Nancy Lieberman Charities had helped him rebuild a small part of the area where he grew up.

“When I was in a situation where my hometown had been wiped out by Hurricane Sandy, a little town on Long Island called Long Beach, I was looking for a way to raise money” Crystal said. “In a place that had been ripped apart by seawater, they built these two magnificent basketball courts. “
Crystal did another thing that showed his perspective. He fell. This wasn’t a comedy pratfall. He actually tumbled from his chair as he sat at his table. I don’t think he was injured, but nobody would have blamed him if he had left the venue after that. He didn’t. He stayed until the end of the show and entertained the crowd, in part with a running series of jokes about his mishap. A bruised tailbone didn’t result in a bruised ego. He was going to stay and help the nonprofit show the guests an enjoyable evening.

Crystal took photos of the crowd from the stage. He told Jay Harris fantastic stories of his one-man show and his (and Nancy Lieberman’s) friend Muhammad Ali. And he did receive his award from Bo Derek. Though he had the audience riveted, we probably can’t say he stole the show on the stage. That’s because Trailblazer Award winner Sam Moore (a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer from his work with Sam and Dave) gave a superb musical performance and after Bebe Winans introduced Jan Miller for the Inspirational Award, the noted literary agent gave a stirring speech.

But it was off the stage that Crystal’s work stood out the most. When Derek spoke before presenting him his award, she told of a program he sponsored that brings together Israeli and Palestinian actors and directors to peacefully co-produce creative works. It showed the perspective he has on the world – one that he contributed to an event that grossed $1.2 million for charity. For a man who has hosted award programs and walked away from them with hardware, it showed why he was truly a worthy recipient.

Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.


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Pudge in Puerto Rico

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/02/15/sports-rush-pudge-cleans-up-at-home/

  
 Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez has seen firsthand the devastation visited on his homeland. In this video interview, the Puerto Rican (and Texas Rangers) icon explains about his island’s needs and details an effort he and one of the companies he represents made to help an orphanage there.

In September, Hurricane Maria’s 150+ mph winds and Biblical quantities of rainwater inflicted massive amounts of damage on Puerto Rico. Driving around its capital, San Juan, one still spots uprooted trees, dismantled roofs, and other reminders of the devastation that will require years, and perhaps decades, of refurbishment.

Even at Estadio Hiram Bithorn, the national baseball stadium in San Juan, loss of power forced the local Winter League teams to play day games, and even now many of its large signage frames remain without the content blown away by the storm.
Chili-Cook_Rectangle6

The island loves baseball, and many of the sport’s current and former Puerto Rican stars rallied to support their home territory. Rodríguez worked in the hurricane’s aftermath to help get supplies to the island, and has returned multiple times since. On a previous trip, he visited the Hogar Forjadores de Esperanza home for boys, a cause long supported by his endorsee, Sun West Mortgage Company, and brought donated bicycles to its occupants. On this trip they made an even more meaningful donation, and in the video, you’ll see why the facility needed it.


 
Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.
 
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Watered-Down Super Bowl Spots

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/02/06/sports-rush-the-social-responsibility-bowl/

We’ll remember Sunday’s Super Bowl for a great game wherein a contentious, championship-starved city saw its boys defeat a near-dynasty in a close and fascinating game. It offered a memorable and intricate halftime show.

We might not remember it as one of the great Super Bowl commercial showcases.
In fairness, it’s not really equitable to judge Super Bowl commercials by the standards of the past. The memories we retain of Michael Jordan and Larry Bird competing for a Big Mac and Monster.com‘s middle-management aspirants probably obscure those years’ uninspired tax preparer submissions or dull dotcom spots. Were the Starr Packers better than the Favre Packers? Were the Bud Bowl beer bottles better than the Coke bottle that quenched Mean Joe Greene’s thirst? Hard to say.

My personal favorite spot this year came from M&Ms and starred Danny DeVito. The Tide ones making light of the entire Super Bowl spot phenomenon probably struck a few chords. And the intertwined celebrity-driven raps from corporate siblings Doritos and Mountain Dew tweaked the marketing geek in me.

2018 will likely be known in Super Bowl commercial lore, however, as the year of corporate social responsibility. An outsized number of advertisers based their offerings around recounting good things they do in the community or other messages indicating they care about more than the bottom line. I counted at least eight (more if you include stuff like Toyota’s Team USA support ads and Coke’s message of inclusion) who took that tack. Some mostly celebrated their own roles in the community endeavor, while others offered a way to help a related cause via online donations.

When I’ve worn my marketing hat, I’ve always felt companies walked a fine line when attempting to communicate about their social responsibility initiatives. People don’t generally like braggarts, and an acquaintance who informs us about how unselfish he or she is makes us suspicious of his or her true motives. That doesn’t mean companies can’t or shouldn’t use community initiatives for marketing purposes, only that one has exercise care not to invite skepticism about one’s intentions. That’s especially true in the area of advertising, where the audience expects to see messages extolling a company’s virtues. If you appear to be saying, “We’re not interested in marketing ourselves, we’re just interested in this worthy cause,” but then are perceived as actually delivering a marketing message because you overpraise your own contributions, you’ve got a chance to turn people off instead of improving your brand image.

The adage “show me, don’t tell me” comes to mind here. Be bold in the doing, subtle in the recounting. In a lot of ways, I think social media works far better for showing off community work than traditional advertising. Playing the long game, where you consistently focus on promoting the cause itself, while including your own involvement in increments only large enough to establish your bona fides, feels imminently more authentic then loudly (and expensively) proclaiming how much you care.

Sunday, Budweiser showed off a beautiful spot chronicling how one of their breweries can switch from canning beer to packaging water directed to disaster victims. One of the nice stories it told was of the devotion of its employees, and praising good works done by one’s staff can be an authentic-feeling technique. If I’d made “Stand By You,” though, I might have considered losing the staged opening shots with the brewery manager and the end slate telling us they’ll stand by us. Perhaps it would have enhanced the authenticity to just show us real footage of the canning machine conversion and the water being delivered, followed by information about how people could contribute to disaster relief or seek assistance if they lacked necessities. The company had some of that messaging available online, but it didn’t make it into what they showed in the Big Game.

In a time when big corporations have come under criticism, some deserved and some less so, the spot did remind us how the resources of big companies can add value to our lives in times of crisis. In terms of how such notions specifically applied to Budweiser, more “show” and less “tell,” especially with legitimately authentic social media support, might have enhanced the eight figures the brewer likely spent on the effort. At press time, comments on the spot on the company’s social media were mixed. Some praised Anheuser-Busch for its water donations and others wrote: “Yeah brag about your tax write-off” or “The truly great companies that donate product, money or time are the ones that are humble and do not use a disaster or people in need as an opportunity to promote themselves through commercials or videos patting themselves on the back to get attention and recognition for helping. Typical corporate behavior where putting the focus on the company overshadows the actual cause.”

A lot of companies spent millions on advertising Sunday. Some chose to deliver messages about how their companies embrace certain forms of altruism. Others chose to use a riled-up Martha Stewart to sell a new line of sandwiches, and perhaps they will put some of those proceeds into charity initiatives. How well those strategies work for them depends on how well they do at show and tell.


Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.



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Beef Meets Baseball

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/01/31/sports-rush-from-ballpark-to-table/

As Globe Life Park in Arlington’s executive chef, Cris Vazquez supervises preparation of the food you eat when you go to a Rangers game. He must have culinary mastery of everything from dollar hot dogs to suite-level fine dining. With baseball in its offseason, he spent the past two Saturdays in Fort Worth at the Stock Show. In the Coors Light Roadhouse, he demonstrated cooking techniques for preparing products bearing the name of a former Rangers team president (and pitcher): Nolan Ryan Beef.

In this video interview, we find out what he was preparing and how, and discover a delicious-sounding mix of ingredients. You can watch the demonstration the interview references on the Nolan Ryan Beef Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NolanRyanBeef/videos/1193849494085258/. That page also contains videos of the three other demos he did at the Roadhouse. We find out about how to prepare beefy dinner entrees and he also dishes on Mr. Ryan – turns out he likes to eat beef. And also potatoes.

Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.

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Hockey's New Home in Hockeytown

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/01/25/sports-rush-jewel-of-hockeytown/

Last week the Dallas Stars made their first visit to Detroit’s new hockey facility, Little Caesars Arena. I went on the trip and you’re probably wondering, “What did you see? And did you freeze your gungagalunga off?” Here are some observations, and my gungagalunga is fine, thank you very much.

When they spend millions on a new hockey stadium in a place that styles itself “Hockeytown,” you can bet it’ll be pretty full-throttle, and the place has a lot of features and a lot of style. Besides a superb sound system and wide concourses, it features top-level “gondola” seating that provides a look from right over the ice, albeit from a mountainous elevation (it still works).

Inside, banners commemorating the Original Six franchise’s retired numbers and Stanley Cup wins hang from the ceiling girders. They created these banners specially for the new space, with the ones that hung in the team’s previous home, Joe Louis Arena, now adorning the team’s downstairs practice rink.

The facility also serves as home to various youth hockey programs, with youngsters traipsing through the downstairs hallways even on game day. Those teams have long been sponsored by the arena’s namesake pizza company, founded by the late Red Wings and Tigers owner Mike Ilitch and his wife, Marian. They don’t skimp on their naming rights sponsor’s branding in the place, either, and, yes, you can get a hot-and-ready pie in various locations.

There’s also a Kid Rock-themed restaurant. Huge images and statuary of Wings legends like Gordie Howe decorate the concourses.

Two things we didn’t see as much of: octopi and the Pistons.
Wings fans have long prided themselves on sneaking in mollusks to fling onto the ice during the playoffs. While it’s a storied hockey tradition, my guess is the team doesn’t want to do anything encourage it. They do, however, have a few kids octopus items in the gift shop.

The Pistons announced their move to the new arena well after the hockey team had spearheaded its development. While it was admittedly a Wings game night, the deficit in permanent branding between the basketball and ice hockey sides of the equation was noticeable.
The Wings announced attendance at 19,515, a sellout, but pockets of empty seats dotted the arena. Playing a Tuesday in frigid weather can’t have helped fill seats. I wondered if when the Texas Rangers can add air conditioning in their new ballpark, the hot trip from the parking lot might still depress attendance. My guess is people would favor a 100-degree drive and walk over the same ordeal in freezing cold precipitation, but we won’t know for sure until the 2020s.

It will also take a while to know how the development schemes around the stadia in Arlington and the Motor City will work out. In year one, there wasn’t much around the arena. Perhaps that will change if the city of Detroit recovers from its recent financial turmoil.

Bottom line is that if you’re a hockey fan, an ornate arena operated by an Original Six team is well worth visiting. And if you’re a Stars fan, you’ll hope to do it on a night like last Tuesday: Dallas overcame an early deficit to earn a 4-2 road win.


Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.

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A New Ride for Morgan Wade

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/01/17/sports-rush-a-ride-of-a-different-kind-for-morgan-wade/

Morgan Wade has made his name and his living riding and winning freestyle competitions on a bicycle. On Sunday, he embarked on a ride much different from the kind for which he’s known. It’s a long-distance trek, and while they’ll likely encounter some inclines, he won’t have to pedal to get over them, and he’d probably be best advised not to attempt any tricks on his two-wheel ride. Wade will be astride a motorcycle – a big one – in a group trip to Las Vegas.

The ride, called “Destination Nowhere,” will include Wade and some colleagues from his sporting world, plus current and former U.S. military personnel. Mounting donated Harley-Davidsons, they set out from Irving with a goal of creating awareness for Tomahawk Charitable Solutions, a group that provides assistance to Special Operations Forces (SOF) and law enforcement communities and their families. Along the way, they’ll stop in various western locales for experiences like skydiving and target shooting.

In the video that is the focus of this post, Wade talks about his involvement in the Bikes for Baghdad program. He and other freestyle riders have made numerous trips abroad to put on shows for U.S. troops. You’ll see some footage in the video we sourced from Department of Defense archives. Video credits for those go to Staff Sgt. John Barnes of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing and Spc. Megan Wessels of the 109th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.

Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.

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Museum of Dreams

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2018/01/10/sports-rush-museum-of-dreams/

I had a dream the other night and it inspired me to write this column. 

I actually have this dream every so often in various forms, and it involves the idea that the Rangers have scheduled a game back at old Arlington Stadium and I am going. Usually in this dream, I am just a fan at the game, navigating narrow concourses and acres of bleacher seats. Sometimes I am working, trying to remember where the press box entrance is. 

I have no idea why I have this dream (crowd-sourced psychoanalysis welcomed), but I do know I had a lot of fond memories of going there as a kid and watching Major League Baseball.

Of course, the team won’t be scheduling a throwback event at the old stadium because they tore it down when they built a new facility. The Rangers are about to construct their third ballpark, but this time the (tentative) plan involves repurposing the former home rather than demolishing it. 

If they’re going to trade on nostalgia, they should go all in and bring back one of Globe Life Park in Arlington’s former features. They should have a baseball museum.

The current facility would be a great place to house such a thing. How do we know? It already did.

When the place opened in 1994, the Legends of the Game Baseball Museum occupied a storefront facing Randol Mill on the ballpark’s south side. The downstairs portion housed exhibits on the game’s great players, its equipment, its uniforms, broadcasting and more. The displays included artifacts on loan from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York - not a small thing for a museum to possess.

The second floor told the story of the Texas Rangers and baseball in North Texas. On the third floor, one found interactive areas geared toward young people.

If you loved baseball, you couldn’t help but find the museum absorbing. Objects owned by Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb stood on view alongside videos of Nolan Ryan no-hitters and Mantle/Maris/McGwire/Sosa/Bonds home run chases. If one re-opened such a museum, it would become a must-see for hard-core baseball fans.

But the longtime fans aren’t why the museum should come back. The biggest reason is the need to create the next generation of such people. Those of us who fell for the game at a young age developed a curiosity about it and began to take the deeper dives into its rich heritage. For me, books on the game and stories from my father got me fascinated with the game’s colorful past. That depth of engagement ensured I would want to continue to interact with the game into the present day, and attend games in any ballpark available. 

Before the museum closed after the 2009 season, every school group that toured the ballpark visited it. Schools could justifiably consider it an educational experience and thousands of children had a chance to realize how much there is to the national pastime.

The Rangers need baseball fans. This is a football state, and sports like basketball, ice hockey, soccer, and many others compete for allegiance. No sport has a history as storied as baseball’s. The Rangers should use it to their advantage.

Of course, you’d want to update the presentation, and have a plan for continuing to do so. When you’re competing for loyalty with e-sports and cellphones, the technological setup has to resonate. One issue the previous incarnation had was lack of commitment to keeping the exhibits fresh. As a Rangers employee, it took me years to find the money just to update a few videos so kids wouldn’t think Roger Maris still held the home run record or Oddibe McDowell was the only Ranger to hit for the cycle.

Would a new museum work from a business standpoint? According to museum personnel I talked to before the front office repurposed the space, it was still profitable to the end. The way it made a lot of its money was through events (including my sister’s wedding reception), but the Rangers thought they could make more profit by taking out exhibits and creating a more open floor pattern. The current Rangers Hall of Fame is the result.

Between the new ballpark and whatever is left at the old one, though, the team will have plenty of event space to rent. They could easily retain plenty of short-term profits from parties and corporate functions while also investing in cultivating the long-term fan base. And you could still host the right kinds of happenings at the museum, like the Batty at the Ballpark Halloween event pictured in this post’s featured photo. Note the baseball displays behind my niece‘s cool balloon/flower headdress.

If you want kids to have big league dreams (sometimes literally), you have to help them envision such things. A shrine to baseball would put them in the right frame of mind.


Rush Olson has spent more than two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine Productions.

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