How to Market a Hockey Team in the South

Here's an example of a good advertisement for an NHL team:



Why can't whoever does the marketing for the Atlanta Thrashers come up with something like that? It's not like Atlanta suffers from a dearth of ultra-famous pop stars. Throw noted Thrashers fan Lil Jon in a commercial. Or Missy Eliot, who lives here now. Or best of all, Outkast! Who WOULDN'T buy tickets to a Thrashers game after seeing Big Boi and Andre 3000 in a halfway-decent commercial, one that didn't look like it'd been filmed on 80s videotape rubbed in toilet rust?

Is it because the marketing folk have convinced themselves that their "target demographic" is tragic white people from the suburbs, and said white suburbanites are frightened by Teh Blaques?

The Atlanta Spirit are sitting on a goldmine of potential hockey fans in the Atlanta area. You know what might bring in more consumers? Being a quality team and winning games, first and foremost, yes of course. But a way to interest more people in the NHL might be an overhaul of its image (increasingly contrary to the reality) as hopelessly monochromatic. This isn't the fault of the Atlanta Spirit, of course. Expanding the NHL's fanbase beyond crackers would be the work of the entire league, and the work of several long years.

UNLESS THE THRASHERS PUT OUTKAST IN THEIR COMMERCIALS!