Athletes Really Can Stop Taking Out Full Page Thank You I'm Gone Ads

A Place To Buy Nothing

Hey, stud player with too much coin who is leaving town. Want to be sure to get one last handy from the local scribes that you threw crumbs to while in town? Take out an ad in the newspaper!

It doesn't really matter what you saw in it, as no one under the age of 55 has read a newspaper since Obama took office, and newspapers exist only to give online content generation some air cover while they keep not making money. (Free is too a business model! Now go click some of this blog's fine, fine collection of ads. Many times.) It also doesn't matter how long you were in town, how beloved you were or were not, or how relieved you are to be getting away from these lunatics, weather, owner, coach or media. Just say what you don't mean! For money.

There is, honestly and for true, no greater moment of logrolling and nonsense as the full page thank you print ad. The team's fans have no great affinity toward you; in all likelihood, a sizable percentage of them were agitating for you to go all along, or annoyed that you didn't give your old team the thoroughly pointless discount to stay. (A sacrifice that no one reading this blog has, or will ever be expected, to make. Capitalism just doesn't work like that.) The benefit this does to your "brand" (and yes, I work in marketing and advertising theoretically, and even I just threw up in my mouth more than a little) is fleeting at best. No one ever had "but he took out an ad in the paper" appear during their next arrest story. It doesn't set you up for a future in the Media, at the very least, because there is no future for the media you just advertised in. The only real benefit to this is that it shows the general public just how cheaply you can pay off print reporters. Sure, he may have been a malcontent, quit on plays, appeared on the police record and headed off to go beat our team's brains in by signing with a division or conference rival, but lookie! An ad! We're saved from eating generic cat food for another week!

So, on the very unlikely chance that these words show up in an athlete's vision, I Haz Suggestion for your next going away media blitz: go digital. Have retargeting banners ("Miss me? I miss you! Buy my new jersey here!") set up to people who visit your old team's site. Send a string of emails, each one going through a different stage of loss, on your grieving process. Make a video pre-roll from your bon voyage press conference, linking to your own site, of course, to push up the all-important Like Count. Tweet like you mean it, or at the very least, like the nerd in your posse means it. In short, hit the actual platform that you use every day, rather than the one that's drowning in disuse and delusion.

Oh, and be prepared for the absolute and complete silence that your words will receive.

Because, after all, only people who pay for print ads can be Good Guys in print media...