MASN Ads: Don't Forget, The Nats Stunk Last Year, Too
Last Wednesday, I took in a game at Nationals Park in some boffo seats -- and while the food was tasty, the beer cold, and the ballpark just as nice and clean as it was last year, the on-field play was, as has been the norm, less than optimal. That evening, the home team lost a 1-0 game on a bases loaded walk in the top of the ninth inning; the crowd over the course of a run-less opening eight innings, as you can imagine, was not quite awash with excitement. But still: it was the ballpark. There's just something about being there to hear the crack of the bat and the monotonous chant of the beer man, to stand for the seventh inning stretch, to eat like garbage and not care, because that's just what you do. Being in that atmosphere, it's just...a good thing.
Therein lies the challenge for Nats broadcaster MASN -- how is the network supposed to make watching a god-awful baseball team appealing to viewers without the amenities that the ballpark atmosphere can use to draw people to watch? You make some promos, and hope for the best, that's how. This year, the network enlisted the strategy of featuring "real" Nationals fans from around the area, talking about memorable moments from last season's campaign as said moments (as shown on MASN) play in the background. Judging from the commercial below, the network seems like it could be able to make viewers think that watching the Nats on television is exciting.
Not bad -- it does what it's supposed to do, in that, yes, last year's Opening Day was pretty fun to watch on the tube. Unfortunately for MASN marketing department, the following 161 games of the 2008 Nationals campaign wasn't exactly chock full of enthralling source material for killer thirty second blips. In fact, one could make the argument that outside of Ryan Zimmerman's walkoff longball at last year's opener, nothing of note really happened.
Obviously, MASN couldn't simply replay the Opening Day promo every single commercial break. They had to make others. This, obviously, caused some problems.
Take this one, for example. We're not the first to have seen this commercial and wonder how this, in any capacity possible, would make anyone want to watch a Nationals game on television:
Just for the record, the commercial actually promotes the fact that rising star Elijah Dukes "doesn't try to be a hero." Charming.
A walk-off walk? Can you taste the excitement yet, Nats fans?
Oh, but there's so much more.
In this promo, George from Burke, VA -- who may or may not moonlight as a Koopa-squasher -- talks about one of the Nationals' big hitters: Wil Nieves. In the ad, Mario George introduces Nieves' only real career highlight like so:
And who comes up? Wil Nieves. Who? Wil Nieves, who in twelve years, has never hit a home run in the majors.
Yes, who? Oh, that guy who can't hit at all! Whether it was twelve years, six years, whatever -- the important part is that he got the story right: that, yes, you should watch Nats baseball on MASN, because you never know when a backup catcher who has played less than 140 games in his "twelve year" career will somehow scrap a home run from nowhere.
Moving on:
I'm sorry ma'am, I must have missed the line in your haiku about about "hitting .167 in the leadoff role and being demoted to Triple-A Syracuse to open the 2009 season."
I went ahead and took the liberty of rewriting this one:
Alright, it's September, and the Mets are in town...and in first place. I mean, sure, even though we won two games from a team that didn't end up making the playoffs, we won! That's gotta count for something, right?
Man, I hate the freakin' Mets. Our record after these two wins was what? 58-93? [groans] Where's my half-smoke? Hey, just thinkin' out loud here -- didn't we go on to lose the next two games in this series? Uh, oh yeah, go Nats. Watch MASN. Please?
Hmm. Perhaps it wasn't the best promotional idea to base this year's ad campaign around memorable moments from last season, when said memorable moments were practically non-existent. It's not as if there aren't successful baseball promos out there to take example from. MASN, please don't make the few fans who can tolerate watching the team watch commercials featuring walk-off walks, backup catchers, and minor-league leadoff hitters all summer -- it's just making the insufferable losing even worse.