PR Move of the Day: The Philadelphia market has always been a tough sell if you are not the Eagles, or this time of year usually the Flyers or March Madness (although Philly, like New York, may be without a representative in the Big Dance this year), but the Phillies have made great strides to look at ways to get the medi.message back to Philly from spring training. The team, with efforts coordinated by longtime Philly-area media vet Scott Palmer, sends a newsfeed back to the Philly area for media to download and use for evening sports filler and for added digital content. This is a great enhancement for the local media who are challenged to spend the six weeks in Florida, and gives the Phils a chance to tell the stories of many of their players before they come north with great content on slow news days.The Phillies also came up with a great hook to capture the female audience by announcing a series of softball clinics in the area over the summer. Both are examples of the organization going the extra mile to service the media and identify with a fan base which may not always be thinking baseball, especially at this time of year, and both will pay divedends as the summer unfolds, regardless of team success (which the pr and marketing groups, as we know, cannot control). Many teams may not be able to absorb the cost of a five-times-a week feed, but the potential for sponsorship, as well as the use of the digital platform, should make the “feed” concept more reasonable for colleges (even for Olympic sports), minor league teams on the road and even major league teams who lack for broad-based coverage in preseason.
Some other solid ideas we found…congrats to the ECHL Mississippi Sea Wolves for a partnership with the University of Southern Mississippi that will have the team wear and then auction off Southern Miss jerseys on April 4. The passion and affinity for collegiate sports is very strong, and the tie between the Sea Wolves, the university and the charity will help them draw from a non-hockey audience as they show support for USM….different twist on an item everyone likes, the game jersey.?Another q and a worth reading is David Stern's sitdown with the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend, as th.Comish sheds light on to some of the NBA issues in what has been a great year for the NBA…with March Madness upon us we wil.see the great “untold” stories finally unfold as the tournament begins…Sunday's New York Times brought us the story of NCAA-bound Siena College and Margaret McCaffrey, the outspoken wife of Saints coach Fran McCaffrey…a great beginning of the inside looks we will find as the stage grows…Mike Wise's Sunday piece in the Washington Post on Georgetown's road back to glory is also a solid read.
