Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Impostor MJ causes drama

An NBA Development team, Utah Flash had to refund tickets to their fans after a big "hoax" went wrong in the city of Orem, Utah. The Utah Flash GM,Brandt Andersen, attempted to coordinate a highly anticipated match up of 21 between two of basketball's greatest Michael Jordan and Byron Russell. This match was supposed to happen during the halftime of one of their games. Andersen heard word of a look a like Michael Jordan, and brought him to Utah for the stint. This however went all wrong once the fans figured out that he was an impostor. More than half booed at half time and left shortly after. The commissioner of the Development League, Dan Reed, went on to say this on the matter, "for a Utah Flash promotion that never should have happened." Since then Andersen has deeply apologized and refunded the spectators of their tickets. This type of situation was used to bring more fans to the arena and to boost popularity of the team. However it only backfired and brought a negative reaction to the franchise. It was supposed to be for popular business, as our book explains it in Chapter 4, Business of Sport.

Here is the link for additional info:
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/sports/12/09/09/nba-d-league-apologizes-jordan-vs-russell-hoax

Julien Cromer SEC 2 KIN 332I

1 comment:

Kerrie Kauer said...

This was such a ridiculous idea in the first place. In the article it mentions that the team tried contacting Jordan, but why would he want to go into Utah? Especially to play a game of one on one. First of all, Utah fans are not Michael Jordan fans. Everyone should know that. By competing in the public eye like that could do a lot of damage to his image.
This is also terrible that the team sold the idea that MJ was coming to play one on one. This goes to show you that players, coaches, and front offices are in the D-League for a reason.