Brown Bagging It

By: katypolansky | Category: Miscellaneous

I’m probably one of the few people in the country who thinks the NJ Nets of the NBA have been fun to follow this year. The team needs to win one of its remaining nine games to avoid tying the worst all-time record in the NBA. What I’ve enjoyed watching is how the front office has tried to get bodies in the seats and keep its fans happy, or as happy as fans of a terrible team can be.

I blogged about the Nets free tax preparation offer earlier in the season. This week the front office was again making national headlines for a confrontation that occurred between team chief executive Brett Yorkmark and a fan named Chris Lisi. Lisi wore a brown bag over his head while watching the Nets play a home game in the Izod Center. Yorkman confronted him about this in what has been reported as a “heated exchange.” The two men have now decided to have a brown-bag lunch at the Net’s headquarters on Tuesday to hash out their differences. It is not unheard of for a front office to meet with really disgruntled fans. What I think is interesting is that the Nets are going stream the meeting live on www.njnets.com. Presumably to make the event more entertaining Yormark and Lisi will be joined by Nets radio broadcasters Chris Carrino and Tim Capstraw.

Fan reaction to the idea of Yorkman meeting with one of its brethren has been mixed. Two of my favorite reader comments from ESPN’s story on the upcoming meeting are:

"Am I the only one that thinks this is kind of cool, publicity stunt or no? I mean, how often do fans complain that owners/team execs don't really give a toss about the fans?"  - Kevin_arnold

"This sounds like Obama and Professor Gates and the cop. Stupid publicity stunt."        - Sacjai

I think the Nets will spin the meeting as a great chance to once again show how much they care for and about their fans. One might ask if this is the case why was their Cheif Executive yelling at their fans in the first place... but I think overall this is a good marketing move. I’ll post the follow up and reaction to the meeting on Wednesday.

Updated: Wednesday March 31, 2010 - ESPN did a nice job covering the aftermath of this meeting. To read its follow up article click here.