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 Column: Gronkowski up for game, hopes ankle is He can name the three Kardashian sisters, and he's got the most talked about body part at the Super Bowl. There's a billboard in the Boston area touting his "party" line and a "Party Gronk" song enjoying a run on the Internet. Pats Gronkowski sheds boot, sounds ready to play The boot is off and Rob Gronkowski's ankle is feeling much better. New England's All-Pro tight end shed his walking boot in time for media day Tuesday, and sounded optimistic he'd be lining up against the New York Giants in the Super Bowl on Sunday. |
O'Hara says a big part of the problem is the fact Reebok's contract with the NFL to make jerseys for sale has expired.
"That means Reebok is cleaning up their merchanidse and no longer producing them, which means you can't get them," explains O'Hara. "We ordered them, we couldn't get them."
He says that problem is not restricted to Gronkowski. "Same thing with our Bills jerseys. We couldn't get a lot of things over the course of the past season. We ordered jerseys and never got them," frustrating not just customers but Laux.
O'Hara says there are a couple of possibilities if you really want a Gronkowski jersey in time for the game.
"If New England has some stores that have them, sometimes they make them special for them. Or if you go to nlf.com (you can order one), but we cannot get our hands on those jerseys," says O'Hara.
O'Hara notes the NFL contract goes to Nike for 2012. He says there will be another trick when it comes to which jersey to get in stock, including whether players change teams, and which players will remain popular.
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Exclusive WBEN Audio On the WBEN Liveline: Experts weigh in on the ads, the broadcast and the game. |
Prof. Bob Thompson, Syracuse U. Pop Culture Expert |
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John Murphy, Buffalo Bills Play By Play Anncr. |
Ad Exec. Tom Merrick Eric Mower & Assoc |
RELATED: Goodell says Adding A Team More Likely Than Moving OneNFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says if the NFL puts a team in Los Angeles, it is probable the league would expand to 34 franchises. The news could be encouraging for wary Buffalo fans, concerned about the Bills future after 97 year old owner Ralph Wilson. Appearing Thursday night on "Costas Live" on NBC Sports Network, Goodell said the league "doesn't want to move any of our teams. " READ MORE
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The "second-screen" Super Bowl.
Chevrolet rolled out the first Super Bowl smartphone app that allows Big Game watchers to enter a contest to win everything from pizza to a new Camaro. Kia is the first company to show its Super Bowl ad ahead of the game in movie theaters. And Coca Cola set up a Facebook page and website so viewers can see its animated polar bears - one cheering for the New England Patriots and the other for the New York Giants - reacting to the game in real time. "The world is changing," says Pio Schunker, Coca Cola's vice president for creative excellence. "We needed to come to the party with something new and different." Advertisers have big incentives to stand out. With more than 111 million viewers expected to tune into the game, the Super Bowl is by far the biggest stage for marketers. It's also not cheap - NBC is charging an average of $3.5 million for a 30-second spot. And the competition is fierce: there will be more than 70 TV ads during the Super Bowl battling for attention. To create buzz, it's no longer enough for marketers to simply get people talking at the water cooler the morning after the game. They also want to engage the people who like reacting to big events like the Super Bowl by posting on Twitter or Facebook or texting their friends, says David Berkowitz, vice president at digital marketing agency 360i.
"People are glued to their digital devices, sometimes sharing far more that way than they are with others in the same room," says Berkowitz, whose firm created Coke's online Super Bowl campaign. "Being social means something very different now." About a dozen companies have put up their Super Bowl spots on video-sharing website YouTube this year, up from a handful last year. The amount companies have spent on sponsoring Youtube's Ad Blitz, a site for Super Bowl ads, has doubled compared with last year although it declined to say by how much. And in another sign that marketers are trying to engage viewers over social media web sites: USA Today's Ad Meter, which ranks the popularity of ads, is for the first time allowing viewers to vote for their favorite spot on Facebook. "This year, we're seeing a whole new level of social media activity for Super Bowl advertisers," said Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. This is the first year that advertisers have tapped into the growing number of users of iPhones and other smartphones during the Super Bowl. In its ads, domain-name hosting site Godaddy.com will feature a QR code, a black and white two-dimensional code that people can scan by putting their smartphones up to the TV so they can go to the company's website. This is a first for a Super Bowl ad. Chevy's free smartphone app for the Super Bowl, called Chevy Game Time, allows people to enter a contest to win prizes from Chevy and other Super Bowl advertisers, including Bridgestone and Motorola. Users also will get a code. If the code matches the license plates in Chevy ads during the game, they win one of 20 cars being given away, including the Camaro, Silverado and Sonic. App users can also answer trivia questions or polls to win prizes. Other advertisers are going after the laptop and tablet crowd. As part of Toyota's Super Bowl campaign to showcase its "reinvented" Camry, the company is asking Twitter users to use the hashtag, or search term, "(hash)Reinvented," to post or "Tweet" about what other kinds of products should be reinvented. Some will get a response back with an illustration of the "reinvented" product. Volkswagen released a teaser of its 60-second Super Bowl ad on YouTube.com. The ad, which shows dogs in "Star Wars" costumes barking the "Imperial March" song, was released on the site on Jan. 18 and has 10 million views. Volkswagen also created a dedicated Super Bowl on its Facebook page. For all their attempts to reach people on their "second screens," Calkins, the marketing professor, says advertisers won't know what works until Game Day. "The question is which of the advertisers will really manage to connect on the day of the Super Bowl," Calkins said. "It's never entirely clear which ones are going to stand out." |
About two-thirds of smartphone and tablet owners use their gadgets to do things like text or post on Twitter while watching TV, according to research firm Nielsen. So, for Sunday's game, companies from Coke to Chevy are trying to reach fans on all the "second screens" they have.With the Super Bowl days away, federal authorities announced a crackdown Thursday on websites that stream unauthorized broadcasts of sports events just hours after New England quarterback Tom Brady told reporters in Indianapolis that he watched last year's game on an illegal site.
Investigators seized 16 sites and brought criminal charges against a Michigan man who controlled nine of them.
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Related: Review: Super Bowl online decent, won't replace TV The television set won't be the only place to watch video of the New York Giants and the New England Patriots this Sunday. For the first time, U.S. football fans will be able to watch the Super Bowl live on a computer or on a phone |
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara warned sports fans in a release that piracy costs sports leagues and broadcasters millions of dollars, forcing increases in ticket prices and other costs to consumers.
His message came soon after Brady casually mentioned his own use of illegal websites during a news conference staged in preparation for the Super Bowl on Sunday between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.
"Last year I was rehabbing my foot in Costa Rica, watching the game on an illegal Super Bowl website. And now I'm actually playing in the game. So, it's pretty cool," Brady said.
Web operator Yonjo Quiroa, of Comstock Park, Mich., was charged Wednesday with copyright infringement. Prosecutors said he distributed football, basketball and hockey games and wrestling matches.
Quiroa appeared in federal court in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Wednesday. He was held without bail while his immigration status was under review. Larry Phelan, his lawyer, declined to comment.
In court papers, authorities said Quiroa registered nine of the 16 seized domain names in 2010 and 2011 before operating the websites out of his home, collecting profits of at least $13,000 from online merchants who paid him to advertise on the sites.
Authorities said the prosecution was part of a continuing federal effort to target counterfeiting and piracy on the Internet.
Also in Indianapolis, federal authorities said they seized nearly $5 million worth of phony Super Bowl sportswear and merchandise in a nationwide sweep that was the result of a four-month investigation.
Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection said agents targeted stores, flea markets and street vendors that allegedly sold counterfeit game-related sportswear. Fake jerseys, ball caps, T-shirts, jackets and other souvenirs were among the 42,000 items confiscated in Operation Fake Sweep.
Authorities put the total take at more than $4.8 million, up from $3.7 million last year.
Also seized were counterfeit Major League Baseball, NBA and NHL items worth about $1.6 million.
Pats DE Ellis ends tumultuous year in Super Bowl The call came in the early morning hours, jarring Shaun Ellis from a deep sleep. Two buddies were on the line with some news that would shake the veteran defensive end even more.
Super Bowl abounds with unsung heroes For every Drew Brees and Ray Lewis, there is a David Tyree or Larry Brown. Not only do superstars win Super Bowls, super nobodies are heroes, too.
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Many turning points for Giants, Patriots One game, one play, one moment can turn a team's fortunes in the right direction.
Patriots' offense set to rebound from subpar game Tom Brady overthrew a wide-open Rob Gronkowski in the first quarter. Then he threw an interception in the fourth. He was right on target, though, in his postgame assessment.
Giants D-line a key vs Brady in Super Bowl The Giants defense will do everything it can to pressure Tom Brady, and the way the front four has been playing lately it's more a matter of what happens when the pass rush closes in on the Patriots quarterback
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Ochocinco demure in long-awaited Super spotlight Chad Ochocinco was the last Patriot to walk across the field and wade into the pack of reporters and photographers waiting near the sideline. He felt no need to rush the moment he'd longed for nearly his whole life
