Links on Friday

Best. Commentator. Ever. ‘Pour some sugar on me!’. We need this guy for Black Caps v India NOW (but none of this).

This is like one of those ACC ads. For God’s Sake, Don’t Go To The Football And Fall Asleep. YOU WILL BREAK YOUR FACE!

Fight! Fight! Fight! Gannets, seals, dolphins and frickin’ sharks all gang up on a bunch of sardines. *Spoiler* – the sardines lose.

‘The horror… the horror…’ ‘Bit of a late night, was it?

sportreview podcast volume one

sportreview.net.nz presents volume one of our weekly podcast.

If you’re looking for huge names, results, plays of the month, Cricket, sport, you’ll find it on the sportreview podcast. A weekly podcast.

If it’s sport, it’s on the sportreview podcast.

Download:sportreviewnetnz podcast vol1 210209
(1.6MB download / 1’20” duration)

Ponting rested to practice terse press conferences

SRPA: Ricky Ponting revealed he worked on his sandy-speedos press conference technique while rested from captaincy duties. A testing fixture list and a team that’s a bit shit means he’ll spend much of the next 12 months bristling at the media. “Preparation is everything – I could’ve spent the time arranging me tapes in the glove box, but I wanted to put the time in getting narky.”

ACB media training consultant Hugh Brantingham-Eton said “Even a champion like Ricky has to work on their game. I mean, he went out of his way to take offence at the Vettori / Haddin comments like a thoroughbred shitting on their trainer, but we still see areas for improvement.”

Scenario-based training tested Ponting’s self-importance and general fuck-knucklery in a variety of situations, like post match interviews, and walking through airports looking cross. “We worked on slagging groundsmen, whinging about match referees, blaming batting failures on car-parking issues and having a face like a smacked arse.” said Brantingham-Eton. “But we had fun, too, some afternoons we’d throw sausage rolls at journalist-shaped  targets, just to let off steam.”

Ponting is confident the extra training will keep him sharp: “It was back to basics. Sometimes all you need is ‘What the fuck did you just say?’, ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ and ‘I’m Ricky fucking Ponting, who the fuck are you?’, then a walk out. You can over-think this stuff.” said Ponting.

L&P – doing it wrong

I got a press release from L&P’s PR agency today on their upcoming BYC cricket tournament. PR’s easy, it works like this:

  1. Get list of ‘sport blogger’ email addresses. For god’s sake don’t bother reading their site to see if they a) do this kind of thing thing or b) hate you
  2. Send out a mass emailed press release
  3. Bloggers do your job for you and send that shit ‘viral’ on the ‘internet’

Unfortunately, sportreview.net.nz’s policy is that L&P needs to eat a bag of dicks for the way they treated top blokes The Beige Brigade last year. Here’s an excerpt from the email the Ad Agency sent The Brigade when they tried to get behind last year’s tournament:

“We kinda see the Beige Brigade as high profile funny guys where as L&P is always the backseat funny guy, finding humour in little kiwi truths and not really making a fuss. We…don’t feel the fit is quite right for L&P, strategically.”

‘Kinda’. That’s awesome. This is how it’s going to go on my site:

  1. Blogger receives mass emailed press release from L&P (disclosure: blogger already thinks L&P should eat bag of dicks)
  2. Blogger responds with snarky mcsnark snark blog post

L&P has been going to the tired 70s / 80s Kiwiana well for a while now. They used to be good, but the current ads make drinking L&P seem as appealing as feeding my nuts through the electronic whiteboard. Dressing no-marks in headbands and trackies would have a lot more impact if every other hipster on K Road wasn’t dressed like that these days. The campaign’s posters stars aren’t Kiwi lads who love a game of cricket and an L&P to cool off while effortlessly embodying the brand values of being quirky, down to earth, lovable, and a dufus. They’re dicks. Exhibits A through C:

I was going out of my way to get annoyed now. The campaign’s shitty flash-based website is a content-lite shambles, a Trojan horse for lengthy terms and conditions that crashes Firefox, and leaves no Kiwiana stone unturned to flog you sugary water:

Gag me with a jandal – they’re raping buzzy bees here. For crimes against Cricket and New Zealand generally, sportreview.net.nz says no to L&P’s ad campaign, and no to unsolicited press releases. I like to drink L&P with fish and chips as much as the next man, and the BYC tournament itself is a great idea – I’m sure those that play will have a great time – but the patronising and annoying ad campaign, website and PR has to go, team.