Ambush Marketing, College Basketball, Darren Rovell, ESPN/ABC, MLB, Minor League Baseball

Oregon Doc Gives New Meaning To March Madness, And Some Solid Baseball Pieces…

PR Move of the Day: As we move through Championship Week and into the NCAA tournament,  it will be interesting to look for some of the more unique promotions tied to  some of the best weeks of the year on the sports calendar.  Thus far, the best one comes courtesy of Playbooks and Profits in The Oregonian.  A team of Springfield urologists are running a pre-tournament special on vasectomies urging male fans to “lower your seed” for the  tournament, with the idea that post operative recovery requires you to sit around anyway.  Will be interesting to see  what other promos can top this one, which by the way is being pretty well received.

On to some baseball notes…ESPN.com has started a series of solid behind the scenes video pieces, following select players to see what the inside of spring training is all about…the piece with the Tigers Curtis Granderson is really well done, and gets fans to see what it is like on the “ask” side of all those autographs...Bill Plascke’s Sunday column on Joe Torre in the LA Times gives a different insight into  the calming influence the skipper needs to have for the Dodgers and is worth checking out… also if you haven’t seen the Lakeland Flying Tigers blog on the Tigers first person account of the open tryout they held, also worth checking out…give great insight into what goes into an open tryout, but also is a solid example of what can be done when one gets access, whether it is on the collegiate, major or minor league levels…the New York Daily News has a great piece today, which again shows why access is important, on Pedro and Carolina Martinez’s commitment to giving back in the Dominican Republic, a great story that has really not been told, and one which will give fans pause before taking him to task (if he gets off to a slow start)….Lastly, Darren Rovell has launched his second annual quest for  the best minor league logos…should be cool to see what he pulls up and why, and will be a good study into how strategic the minor league baseball logo business has become.