Breaking down the Lap Dance Promotion

I have to comment on this.  I spent a good 10 minutes trying to come up with a funny saying and some witty observational humor about the Boston Blaze lacrosse mascot Scorch and the failed lap-dance promotion.  Then, I realized that this should be an educational tool for smaller teams and mascots getting their start in the business.

Maybe all the bad PR that the Boston Blazers are getting will have teams reconsider just how important game operations and your entertainment brand is.   While there is a saying there is no such thing as bad PR, I'm pretty positive that this qualifies as bad PR.  Yes, people who had never heard of the Boston Blazers before are talking about this fiasco.  I knew the moment that my mom emailed me with the story, that I needed to write about it. An incident like this is something that fans remember first about your organization, no matter how many community appearances your players do, no matter how many tickets you donate, the Boston Blazers are now synonymous with the "lap dance" halftime show.

The Boston Blazers front office consists of about 10 staff members and a couple of coaches, this is according to their website.   I'm sure that there are plenty of part-timers who "work" for the team but are disconnected with front office happenings.  Namely, the mascots and dancers.  These are usually part time low paid positions, which is fine for teams needing to meet a budget, but there needs to be a relationship with the front office.  This team just had a mascot and three dancers sabotage their community, PR and marketing efforts.  All that needed to happen was a simple pre-game meeting that goes over all the promos, skits, music and placement for the night.  I'd like to think that if the Director of Game Operations had heard this, that it would've been immediately shot down and played off as young kids who don't fully understand the consequences of their actions.

Here are the Sparks dancers doing a well thought through dance routine.

I just read that they actually played a "boing" noise simulating an erection for the mascot during one of the lap-dances.  Strike out my theory about the game-ops people being in the dark.

Do you think Scorch made it "rain"?

What's happened has happened.  The next step is learning from this mistake, not only just the Boston Blazers, but small teams and big teams alike.  Have a plan, think things through, know your fanbase, stick to your branding message of fun and affordable family entertainment.  At the end of the day, I doubt this will cause the kids who were attending the game with family or friends to be lured into the world of exotic dancing.  I'm sure many mascots have heard that they are being racy or inappropriate, there is a line, and good performers can toe that line and keep it more funny than dirty.

This is a classic example of when parenting needs to be strong and teach the kids that this promotion was meant to be funny, but wasn't well thought through.  Nothing more, nothing less.