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Cyclones Score Big Points By Renaming A Borough For A Night

It is one of the most famous “non-cities” (it is a borough of New York) in the world…everyone knows Brooklyn.  One out of every seven people in the United States can trace their roots to Brooklyn.  there are fewer places on earth whose residents have more civic pride, and that pride has always been tied to baseball.  Until they went west, that pride was reflected in the Dodgers, and in the last ten years it has been in the Mets Single A New York Penn League team, the Cyclones.  Anyone challenging the tradition of Brooklyn, let alone its baseball team, could find himself with some issues.  That is, unless the tradition is challenged by the team itself, and this week the Cyclones scored some big points in the Barack Obama race by announcing they are re-naming the team for one night the Baracklyn Cyclones and doing an Obama Bobblehead doll.  Once again the great latitude given and the fun thought exhibitied by minor league baseball shines through.  The team got national exposure, created some great brand awareness in a crowded marketplace well into the offseason and will probably spawn other copycats with its innovative planning.  Great move by my native borough team on the PR, branding and even social awareness side.

Some other good reads…a really solid opinion piece in The Sports Business Journal the last few weeks came from Dave Fogelson, most recently Octagon’s head of PR, on what to do when your job is no longer your job…as we near inauguration day, a host of hoops in the White House stories are arising, one of the better analysis coming via Sunday’s New York Times by Jeff Zeleny…the Press Register has a look at how Olympian Nastia Lukin is trying to return to a “normal” life…and the New York Post has a good profile of Nets Entertainment Director Petra Pope…