We are almost at April Fool’s Day, always a chance still for the most creative to casually try their luck at putting one over…in an era of #Fakenews, we will be on the look for some good ones, but here are some best practices in and around sports of years past.
NASCAR driver Aric Almirola hawked Smithfield Brands new “Bacon Crisp Cereal”. New Orleans Pelican star Anthony Davis sent a video in which he appears to shave his famous eyebrow with a giant Red Bull towel dominating the frame. The Jacksonville Jaguars fake-tweeted a new uniform, a stunt that backfired among some fans who liked the faux duds more than the team’s actual uniforms.
One of the best in 2017 saw former NFL star Randy Moss “announce” he was joining the USL the Charlotte Independence, dressed in his blue kit with the No. 84 on the back and donning bright yellow gloves just in time for the team’s home opener that weekend.
One year the New York Islanders pretended to forfeit a game and save their travel time to the Minnesota North Stars by announcing on air that they were “mailing in” the two points and not showing up, something which people say some NBA teams have actually done for a regular season game or two the last few years. Then there was the legendary Sidd Finch, created by George Plimpton and the folks at Sports Illustrated. Sidd’s story, on the cover of SI, became the stuff of legend and was quite believable for the short time, and lives on in video form even today, along with Plimpton’s expanded book on the topic.
In 2003, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban got into a shoving match with a phony NBA official during a timeout. Cuban, never one to shy away from controversy, was poking fun at himself for being fined repeatedly for his complaints about NBA officiating. A Mavericks equipment manager restrained Cuban during the fake fight, drawing cheers from the crowd and even a few laughs from the real officials at the game. The Mavericks’ players weren’t in on the April Fools’ Day prank, so Dallas reserve center Evan Eschmeyer rushed to help restrain the man who signs his checks.
One brand that also did a good job to seize the opportunity, although more tongue in cheek, to use April 1 as a platform for sports promotion and to have a little fun. Pirate Brands announced that the New York Mets had “traded” star third baseman David Wright to…well, the Pirates. The press release and all the great digital platforms around it went out on the 31st, and generated some fun buzz and great images for the move, which was essentially a dry announcement about Wright joining the company’s board and getting an equity stake with the group (although they created healthy snack alternatives for kids and worked with Wright’s Foundation). Still, they made something that was not much into something, using the April Fools platform. There was also a nice college push by LSU several years ago to announce they were turning the turf at Tiger Stadium purple, all equipped with a secret, faster formula to give the football team an even added edge. Great exposure, until the joke came up.
Sean Gleason, CEO of Professional Bull Riders (PBR), informed fans via Facebook last year that the league has been growing so fast it was going to give them even more bang for the buck by doubling the amount of time required for every qualified ride from 8 to 16 seconds, well, the story seemed downright believable to many.
In the spirit of famed former New York electronics retailer, Krazy Eddie, running his Christmas Campaign in August, the league decided to capture fans’ attention by going extra early with its “bull” on Friday, March 30. Gleason teed up a legitimate web story, and in many quarters, all hell broke loose among fans caught completely off guard.
The official website story had realistic quotes from riders and stock contractors, peppered with several giveaway clues to the ruse. The bulls were not available for comment. Reigning PBR World Champion Jess Lockwood would debut the format this coming weekend in Sioux Falls on the bull named, “April Fool’s Day.”
Maybe it was in being out of the gate early on March 30, or the fact that bulls have some funky names (my favorite is the now-retired Chicken on A Chain). Or perhaps we are so intrigued by #FakeNews that our guard is permanently defective. Whatever the reason, many fans were hoodwinked, and PBR became the one league in 2018 to pull off a legitimate April Fool’s Joke.
Those who bought in were incredulous. The sport would be ruined for fixing what’s not broken! And already this season the increasingly powerful bulls have decimated the cowboys. As it is, half of the top 15 is out hurt! What happens when you ask these battered cowboys to ride another eight seconds?
Next to the league’s 2018 schedule announcement, the rules-change ruse was the year’s most-read PBR web site news story.
Being nothing but a bunch of #FakeNews, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.
