Thrashers 'not trying to exploit' black players in marketing

[Zelhar]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Thrashers-not-trying-to-exploit-black-players-?urn=nhl-280435

This losers team from Atlanta (The biggest afro population after NYC) has 20% of all black players in the NHL but they claim it's just a coincidence. Yet they promote themselves to the [censored] of Atlanta as the black team in the NHL.

[eb22]

Atlanta is one of the worst Professional Sports cities in general,   when it comes to fan support.      It's that much more the case with their support of the NHL.    Back in the 1970's,    the Atlanta Flames NHL team moved to Calgary,  Alberta,  Canada.     It wouldn't surprise me if the Thrashers left Atlanta sometime in the next decade.        They are kidding themselves if they think that a high composition of black players will make a difference in fan support.   

[t_h_j]

Atlanta is one of the worst Professional Sports cities in general,   when it comes to fan support.      It's that much more the case with their support of the NHL.    Back in the 1970's,    the Atlanta Flames NHL team moved to Calgary,  Alberta,  Canada.     It wouldn't surprise me if the Thrashers left Atlanta sometime in the next decade.        They are kidding themselves if they think that a high composition of black players will make a difference in fan support.   

braves games are always well attended

[eb22]

Atlanta is one of the worst Professional Sports cities in general,   when it comes to fan support.      It's that much more the case with their support of the NHL.    Back in the 1970's,    the Atlanta Flames NHL team moved to Calgary,  Alberta,  Canada.     It wouldn't surprise me if the Thrashers left Atlanta sometime in the next decade.        They are kidding themselves if they think that a high composition of black players will make a difference in fan support.   

braves games are always well attended

I disagree.   


Despite making the playoffs many more times than not in the last 20 years,    the Braves weren't even able to sell out some playoff games over the years.   

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Thrashers-not-trying-to-exploit-black-players-?urn=nhl-280435

This losers team from Atlanta (The biggest afro population after NYC) has 20% of all black players in the NHL but they claim it's just a coincidence. Yet they promote themselves to the schvartzas of Atlanta as the black team in the NHL.

Sounds like a smart move to generate fan interest.   The young evander kane is very talented.

[Zelhar]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Thrashers-not-trying-to-exploit-black-players-?urn=nhl-280435

This losers team from Atlanta (The biggest afro population after NYC) has 20% of all black players in the NHL but they claim it's just a coincidence. Yet they promote themselves to the schvartzas of Atlanta as the black team in the NHL.

Sounds like a smart move to generate fan interest.   The young evander kane is very talented.

Can you imagine an NBA team signing a disproportional amount of white players and promoting itself as a white team ?

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Thrashers-not-trying-to-exploit-black-players-?urn=nhl-280435

This losers team from Atlanta (The biggest afro population after NYC) has 20% of all black players in the NHL but they claim it's just a coincidence. Yet they promote themselves to the schvartzas of Atlanta as the black team in the NHL.

Sounds like a smart move to generate fan interest.   The young evander kane is very talented.

Can you imagine an NBA team signing a disproportional amount of white players and promoting itself as a white team ?

There may be a misunderstanding here.

They don't promote themselves as a "black team."   They highlight the players on their team who are black in their marketing campaigns and ads in order to get more blacks interested in the team and into the seats watching the games.    There's a big difference.    And having 5 black players really doesn't make it a "black team."  It's mostly white guys, like all teams.

White people are also interested in great black hockey players, just like they are interested in great white hockey players.   But blacks do have a hard time identifying with a sport they perceive as a "white sport" so highlighting the fact that they also have black guys on the team will generate more interest from blacks.   I think it's a good idea.

[Zelhar]

There may be a misunderstanding here.

They don't promote themselves as a "black team."   They highlight the players on their team who are black in their marketing campaigns and ads in order to get more blacks interested in the team and into the seats watching the games.    There's a big difference.    And having 5 black players really doesn't make it a "black team."  It's mostly white guys, like all teams.

They highlight their black players just because they are black and probably they hired them mainly for marketing reasons and would hire more if they could, then how does it essentially differ from promoting a black team ? Anyway, they show a racial preference for blacks, probably due to marketing reasons. Again the analogue case would be an NBA team that prefer white star players and start an add campaign in white neighborhoods saying "Our stars are white, come watch white players kick some black ass".

White people are also interested in great black hockey players, just like they are interested in great white hockey players.   But blacks do have a hard time identifying with a sport they perceive as a "white sport" so highlighting the fact that they also have black guys on the team will generate more interest from blacks.   I think it's a good idea.

I don't care what sport [censored] identify with. If they can only identify with black athletes it goes to show what we know already- they are racists. The thing is that the sport media and professional sport institutions in America expect blacks to conquer every sport (the media generally tries to prove the fallacy that blacks excels at everything).

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

There may be a misunderstanding here.

They don't promote themselves as a "black team."   They highlight the players on their team who are black in their marketing campaigns and ads in order to get more blacks interested in the team and into the seats watching the games.    There's a big difference.    And having 5 black players really doesn't make it a "black team."  It's mostly white guys, like all teams.

They highlight their black players just because they are black and probably they hired them mainly for marketing reasons and would hire more if they could, then how does it essentially differ from promoting a black team ? Anyway, they show a racial preference for blacks, probably due to marketing reasons. Again the analogue case would be an NBA team that prefer white star players and start an add campaign in white neighborhoods saying "Our stars are white, come watch white players kick some black donkey".

I think you misunderstand the situation by the way it is described.

First off, Evander Kane, the one player I'm familiar with out of this bunch, was a first round draft pick that everyone ranked in the top 4 players in the draft.   So he was not "hired because he's black."   He is extremely gifted especially to start with the team as a rookie at such a young age and he held his own in there.

 "Our stars are white, come watch white players kick some black donkey".

No one is making signs like these for Atlanta.   Their ads feature exciting players on the team who are also black players.   These ads appeal to white and blacks.   Nonetheless, hockey is viewed as a "white sport" since it has so few black players.   So having black players in ads to draw in black fans in a city where many black lives, is smart marketing.   If NBA was perceived as a "black sport" by white people and therefore white people didn't show up to games, you can bet your behind that teams would try to get the best white players and market that to get white fans to buy tickets too.    But whites don't really view things that way with regards to the nba.   They don't care what skin color the best players have or that most players have.    So that's the only reason it's not an issue with the nba.

If you say that blacks are wrong for viewing the NHL as not entertaining because it has few gifted black players in it and they are wrong because they don't want to pay to watch a sport with talented white players (predominantly) then fine, it probably is wrong.  Hockey is pretty exciting no matter what the skin colors are.    But I can't see how the Atlanta team did anything wrong in this.

White people are also interested in great black hockey players, just like they are interested in great white hockey players.   But blacks do have a hard time identifying with a sport they perceive as a "white sport" so highlighting the fact that they also have black guys on the team will generate more interest from blacks.   I think it's a good idea.

I don't care what sport schvartzas identify with. If they can only identify with black athletes it goes to show what we know already- they are racists. The thing is that the sport media and professional sport institutions in America expect blacks to conquer every sport (the media generally tries to prove the fallacy that blacks excels at everything).

You don't care, but an NHL team that relies upon ticket sales to make money DOES care what sport the shvartzas living in their city identify with.   What's so hard to get about that?   Every team is trying to make money by marketing their sport and their local team with the local citizens.   The professional sports are a business.

It's not true that they "expect" blacks to dominate every sport.   Blacks have a very small presence in major league baseball.   If they were better and more obsessed with baseball than the latin and dominican players, they'd have more players there and better players.   But they don't.    And blacks generally don't care about hockey either.   Atlanta is trying to make more money, plain and simple.  They don't have some agenda to make blacks take over sports.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

The Thrashers are one of the worst-run clubs in the NHL, very true. Despite being loaded with star players (Ilya Kovalchuk, Marian Hossa, Kari Lehtonen, etc.) over much of the last decade, they made the playoffs exactly... ONCE, and were swept by a mediocre NY Rangers team.

Talk about underachievers. Which would make them perfect as the NHL's first "negro" team.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

The Thrashers are one of the worst-run clubs in the NHL, very true. Despite being loaded with star players (Ilya Kovalchuk, Marian Hossa, Kari Lehtonen, etc.) over much of the last decade, they made the playoffs exactly... ONCE, and were swept by a mediocre NY Rangers team.

Talk about underachievers. Which would make them perfect as the NHL's first "negro" team.

lol

[Zelhar]

KWRBT, why do you take my words so literally instead of understanding the meaning ? Of course there can be no add campaign that literally say "come watch our black players kick some white ass". But the marketing nonetheless aims at a similar message without saying that.

I don't deny that Kane is a big talent and that the other players are worthy to play in the NHL. I claim that that it is no coincidence that many blacks were signed by Atlanta. In other words, they prefer to sign black players because it is easier to market the team with more black players. But Do you deny that if an NBA team did the same thing as Atlanta did with white players there would be an outrage ?

Now I also have to add that I don't think this method of promotion by signing black players is a good one. The core fan base is still the white folk of the Atlanta metro. They are less then 50% of the population but surely there are lots of them in absolute numbers. Perhaps more than in smaller cities like Tampa or San Jose. What real hockey fans want is a good competitive team and that's the main priority of the team managers. If they want to make money, they should get the players that give them the best performance at the lowest cost, regardless of skin color.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

KWRBT, why do you take my words so literally instead of understanding the meaning ? Of course there can be no add campaign that literally say "come watch our black players kick some white donkey". But the marketing nonetheless aims at a similar message without saying that.

I don't deny that Kane is a big talent and that the other players are worthy to play in the NHL. I claim that that it is no coincidence that many blacks were signed by Atlanta. In other words, they prefer to sign black players because it is easier to market the team with more black players. But Do you deny that if an NBA team did the same thing as Atlanta did with white players there would be an outrage ?

Now I also have to add that I don't think this method of promotion by signing black players is a good one. The core fan base is still the white folk of the Atlanta metro. They are less then 50% of the population but surely there are lots of them in absolute numbers. Perhaps more than in smaller cities like Tampa or San Jose. What real hockey fans want is a good competitive team and that's the main priority of the team managers. If they want to make money, they should get the players that give them the best performance at the lowest cost, regardless of skin color.

In all fairness to Atlanta's owners, they were a terrible team when all-white, despite their once-formidable talent. Evander Kane, at this stage of his career at least, is no Dany Heatley or Ilya Kovalchuk, but even when Atlanta had those guys they were garbage.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

KWRBT, why do you take my words so literally instead of understanding the meaning ? Of course there can be no add campaign that literally say "come watch our black players kick some white donkey". But the marketing nonetheless aims at a similar message without saying that.

I don't deny that Kane is a big talent and that the other players are worthy to play in the NHL. I claim that that it is no coincidence that many blacks were signed by Atlanta. In other words, they prefer to sign black players because it is easier to market the team with more black players. But Do you deny that if an NBA team did the same thing as Atlanta did with white players there would be an outrage ?

I don't know if there would be.   But there shouldn't be!

Now I also have to add that I don't think this method of promotion by signing black players is a good one. The core fan base is still the white folk of the Atlanta metro. They are less then 50% of the population but surely there are lots of them in absolute numbers. Perhaps more than in smaller cities like Tampa or San Jose. What real hockey fans want is a good competitive team and that's the main priority of the team managers. If they want to make money, they should get the players that give them the best performance at the lowest cost, regardless of skin color.

They claim they are doing that and it just so happens some of their good players are the rare good black hockey player.   I don't think they are going to lose any white fans because of that.