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Recalling The Rowdies: They Knew How To Market

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By JOE O'NEILL Tribune columnist

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2008

It looks like professional soccer - in the form of a United Soccer League franchise - is headed back our way.

The new team, which plans to play in a new, customized facility in North Tampa by 2010, will be called the Rowdies. As in the old Rowdies of North American Soccer League fleeting fame a generation ago.

It has already sparked its share of nostalgia among those who recall Pele sightings at Tampa Stadium, crowds that occasionally topped 50,000, the region's initial validation as "big league" and Tampa Bay's first pro team and championship (1975).

It has also prompted bemusement and ridicule by those who loathe the low-scoring sport and all those "1-nil" games.

But the old Rowdies' legacy is more than cherry-picked highlights and sports revisionism. Around here, the Rowdies wrote the book on how to market a sports franchise - even the alien likes of soccer, which the rest of the world calls football.

The overriding premise was that attending a game was not some civic responsibility to support "your" team. The challenge was formidable: This was Florida; this was soccer; this was a place with, arguably, better things to do.

It meant free clinics to educate a following and it meant player accessibility, including the ones making the most money. And those players fanned out across the market, from junior highs to Kiwanis clubs to local pubs. Appearances were never token.

It also meant an attitude. The player-ambassadors were extensions of those ubiquitous bumper stickers that impishly reminded "fannies" that the Rowdie experience was "a kick in the grass." And you could bring your family to games without fear of being grossed out by beer-bellied louts.

It helped that the players were uniformly nice guys with clipped British accents who seemed to enjoy a good charm offensive. On a Friday night, you could find a number of them at the old Boneshakers in Hyde Park, not some strip joint. Players never made the police blotter for DUIs, drugs or pregnant girlfriend-cuffing.

The Rowdies' less-than-subliminal message: The onus is on us to make you like us, understand our game and want to root for the home team. We take nothing, especially your patronage, for granted.

Over the years, that memo has been read - and grasped - by the Tampa Bay Lightning and the post-Naimoli Tampa Bay Rays. No arrogance. No sense of entitlement.

Did I leave anyone out?

Raise Awareness

The Tampa Bay Rays obviously have done a lot right this year. From the on-field product to fan-friendly promotions, including those after-game concerts.

But here's a suggestion, prompted by a recent visit to the Trop during the Rays-Cubs series. Consider offering a "Baseball Protocol 101" service. It can be done easily in a lighthearted, funny way - using the Rays' Web site as well as Trop video screen and handouts. But it needs doing if fans of baseball, not just eventgoers, are to become satisfied customers.

The Trop's sightlines are good, except when someone is standing in front of you. But this happens too often and is almost always avoidable.

There will always be a constant flow of spectators to the refreshment areas, and certainly the Rays don't want to discourage profit-center patronage. But how about a little old-school common courtesy from those cycling back and forth multiple times during a game?

Please - and maybe you know who you are - be mindful of when you exit your row and then return to your seat. It's really important to those who are there to actually see the game. Baseball, of all sports, has plenty of stoppage time. Just use it.

Here's the rule of thumb, one that used to prevail when games were mainly attended by hard-core fans:

•Save the "excuse me, excuse me, excuse me" apologies for between innings.

•Timing, of course, is hardly an exact science. So, between batters is still good.

•Between pitches, however, is not so good. One or more (pitches) are sure to be obstructed. Solution: Crouch at the end of the row until the next batter. It won't be long. There's plenty of precedent.

•Don't even think about leaving or returning to your seat without regard to the ongoing game - as if you were at an Adam Sandler movie or Andrew Dice Clay concert. This is totally unacceptable. It's beyond clueless; it's rude.

If Lifestyle Family Fitness can regularly remind members - via humorous video animation - that it is unacceptable to not re-rack weights, leave apparatus seats sweaty and use inappropriate language, then the Rays can entertainingly inform their customers about proper baseball etiquette.

Visiting Fans

According to a very unscientific, personally conducted poll among Rays fans at a recent Rays-Cubs game, there is a decided difference between Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs followers at the Trop.

Red Sox fans, I was told, have this entitlement thing going and are often intolerable. As in, "We're good; you're not; know your place." As in, sit somewhere else.

Cub fans, on the other hand, are acutely aware that the franchise has gone a century without a World Series winner. It makes them - in their heart of hearts - fatalistic. They know another black cat, playoff meltdown or Son of Bartman awaits.

They may be loud, but it's not personal. They may even feel some old Rays' pain.

Carlin In Context

What I remember most about George Carlin are not the "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" (cable excepted), the counterculture satire, the HBO specials or the "Saturday Night Live" host appearances.

It was that he was a rite-of-passage comic for a lot of us.

Sure, he was hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet referencing that "Mexican High," the class clown who nailed Catholic school dynamics and the semanticist who found humor and irony everywhere.

But, more importantly, he wasn't our parents' generation. He wasn't Milton Berle or Sid Caesar. And he wasn't the overrated Lenny Bruce.

Alas, his shtick ultimately became that of angry old guy ranting. But for a baby-boomer generation, Al Sleet lives.

Joe O'Neill is a South Tampa writer who can be contacted at moesez@aol.com or www

.opinionstogoonline.

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