It has been a full week since the world exploded for the New England Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick. The hype surronding the espionage shows no sign of dying down. The harsh penalties imposed by Commissioner Goodell only serve to further amplify the questions surronding the Patriots organization, especially from a marketing perspective. Although Belichick's gruff attitude has made him a less than popular guy around the country, in Foxborough, he is a God and I'm pretty sure a big seller of the famous New England Patriots sweatshirt. Will this cheating scandal ruin Belichick's image of a role model for young kids? I would say yes, if I was a parent I would not endorse merchandise, a team, or a person cheating because it is not a good example for kids.
The marketing department for the Patriots needs to find a way to put the scandal in a positive light in order to counteract the damage this negative publicity has had on the organization. I wonder what sort of a plan they will come up with because I would have assumed that Robert Kraft would distance himself from Belichick. Interestingly enough the opposite has happened with Kraft and the rest of the organization standing behind Belichick. The organization seems to have no problem with Belichick and is confident in his ability as he is rumored to agreeing to a five year extension-- albeit before the scandal but there have been no rumors of the extension offer being rescinded. I think it will be interesting to see how many fans turn out for the first game in Foxborough against the Chargers tonight and how many people watch the game.
Cheating obviously is something that cannot be controlled in sport. It is only possible to catch a few and set them out as examples and hope that it serves as a deterrent. I wonder what effect the new marketing strategies all of the NFL-- not only the Patriots-- will have to implement in order to attract fans, new and old, to a sport with the image of cheating.
4 comments:
The situation is what it is to those outside of the New England area or who aren't Pats fans but if you watched the game last night after the Patriots mollywhopped the Chargers Belichick walked off and was applauded by a crowd of faithful Patriots fans.
From what it appears after watching episodes of PTI and NBC Sunday Night's Halftime show, it seems that Belichick was only the first of many coaches that was actually caught doing what he was doing.
If the Pats can put forth another run for another championship this year, I doubt that anyone would make a big deal out of this scandal at the end of the season.
It seems to me that the Patriots have already bounced back, as much as I hate to see it. The bigger story here is how NBC never strayed from the CameraGate story. The Patriots destroyed a Chargers team that was supposed to be a favorite, and yet all we heard about was the cheating.
I am in no way a Pats fan, but I think they proved that they don't need an edge to win. The Pats organization has moved on, and I think they have a huge chip on their shoulder for the rest of the season. NFL Beware.
My response is: Why would the Pats cheat? I see no point to doing it. They have had such a strong team in the past, and now more than ever, they are going to be very tough to beat. They have one of, if not the best offense in the league. They also have a stellar defense. I believe Belichick was not the only coach who has cheated, but that does not make it right.
Game situations and championships that Patriots won could have been different if these cameras were not put into place. I might be a little happy because the Eagles might have won the Super Bowl. Who knows? I think the commisioner handed down a fair penalty, but I think it should have been worse.
I think not suspending Belichick was a big mistake. Sure, the fine is tough, but the guy is a multi-millionaire, and $500,000 to him probably isn't a big deal. Suspending him for several gmes in addition to the penalties already placed on him and the organization would have been better, in my opinion. Like others have said, this scandal doesn't seem to have hurt the Patriots from a fans perspective at all, so this could have been much worse from a marketing standpoint. At this point, we don't even hear about the scandal anymore, but instead it's just how good Randy Moss and Tom Brady have been this year.
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