I've been busy, but this caught me completely off guard:
First clue I had was when I got into my car and happened to hear Reed Blankenship on the radio...
Think it was a great idea to have it in Nashville...
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FOOTBALL Press Conference in Nashville today
- Thread starter SpaceRaider
- Start date
I've been busy, but this caught me completely off guard:
First clue I had was when I got into my car and happened to hear Reed Blankenship on the radio...
Think it was a great idea to have it in Nashville...
If they won't come to you then you have to go to them!
Really good move to have a pre-season press conference in Nashville which; with all regards to the DNJ, The Post, and WGNS; is the media capitol for the mid-state and the prime outlets for the folks we want to reach, including Rutherford Co. Wonder just which media outlets were represented and which chose not to be bothered. Additionally, wonder which M'Boro media took the effort to go to Nashville.
I would hope all media from the mid-state, including small town radio stations and newspapers, were invited. If not why go to the trouble.
Really good move to have a pre-season press conference in Nashville which; with all regards to the DNJ, The Post, and WGNS; is the media capitol for the mid-state and the prime outlets for the folks we want to reach, including Rutherford Co. Wonder just which media outlets were represented and which chose not to be bothered. Additionally, wonder which M'Boro media took the effort to go to Nashville.
I would hope all media from the mid-state, including small town radio stations and newspapers, were invited. If not why go to the trouble.
I think the start time was 5 or 5:15. That sort of struck me as extremely odd. Seems awfully late for the 6pm news. Rush hour down on lower broad - are you F'n kidding me? You can not move much at all because the traffic.I wonder too, how many showed for that at that time. Did they pick that time because of other local sports coverage by the tv sports or because they might get coverage the drive time radio sports talk folks? I was scratching my head.
It also crossed my mind, that this pretty well commits MT to going to Nashville from now on. Once you've done it, the Nashville media is going to expect it and be ever less likely to go back to the boro to cover this.
I did not see any of the local tv sports coverage at 6 or 10, so I don't know if the coverage was improved from previous years or not by doing this.
It also crossed my mind, that this pretty well commits MT to going to Nashville from now on. Once you've done it, the Nashville media is going to expect it and be ever less likely to go back to the boro to cover this.
I did not see any of the local tv sports coverage at 6 or 10, so I don't know if the coverage was improved from previous years or not by doing this.
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Seems line a good concept but in typical MTSU fashion bad promotion and execution. I First I heard of it was when I turned on 104.5 3HL and it was live. As others said bad time, have it earlier or later, not during Rush Hour. Hope they do it again next year but do it better.
”Mark Owens is in his 19th year overseeing Middle Tennessee’s athletic communications office as an associate athletic director.
A 1989 graduate of Virginia Tech, Owens spent seven years at the University of Memphis as associate media relations director. He joined the U of M staff in 1991 and handled the publicity and promotion of Tiger basketball while also assisting with football. In addition, Owens was responsible for the design and layout of football and basketball media guides that won numerous awards including two national honors. His 1994-95 guide was voted sixth best in the nation and the 1996 football guide was ranked 26th.”
Owens has not ever been that good IMO. It's obvious in events like this. No notice, no build up or alerting the media & public ahead of time so they can promote it. I've met him a few times and have never cared for him. There is a lot of complacency there. No hunger or urgency and we are sorely lacking in those traits when it comes to promoting this team and positioning us in Nashville sports. Why in the hell were we not doing this here back in 2006?
We haven't been included in Nashville sports that much because we don't do the things to make it easy for them to include us. We are looked at like we are TSU and Austin Peay and I blame that on that smug and complacent attitude that I myself have felt in dealing with them. Owens and others should have made it a priority to work in downtown Nashville over a decade ago instead of Murfreesboro. When we went 10-3, why did we not go to Nashville and press conference it? Why did we not get billboards in Nashville touting it? Tweeting ain't enough. FB posts ain't enough. Gotta pound the media pavement and never stop being relentless in getting us positive pub. We won our bowl game in 2017 and we didn't capitalize on that momentum.
We haven't been included in Nashville sports that much because we don't do the things to make it easy for them to include us. We are looked at like we are TSU and Austin Peay and I blame that on that smug and complacent attitude that I myself have felt in dealing with them. Owens and others should have made it a priority to work in downtown Nashville over a decade ago instead of Murfreesboro. When we went 10-3, why did we not go to Nashville and press conference it? Why did we not get billboards in Nashville touting it? Tweeting ain't enough. FB posts ain't enough. Gotta pound the media pavement and never stop being relentless in getting us positive pub. We won our bowl game in 2017 and we didn't capitalize on that momentum.
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Owens is one of the best in the business, highly respected among his peers. MT is lucky to have him.
There is no outrage. Just same old Middle of the road BS when it comes to promoting this program. They did the right thing getting to Nashville but did it with no time for the Major TV outlets to get there. Dead tree media and radio were mainly there. Come on man. At least they were where we might get noticed a bit more. Who knows.
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I disagree. I've met better who do more and not schedule conferences like this with no warning and at the time when outlets can't cover it. If we were lucky to have him, why are our press conferences like watching paint dry for 19 years? Why do we keep doing the same crap year after year when it doesn't work and move the needle forward. It took em 19 years to have a PC in Nashville. that's all I'm saying. SMH. If you are in a job for 19 years and you aren't bringing innovation to it and haven't evolved the program, you ain't that good. 19 years and highly respected but no P5 teams have come calling? LOL. There's your sign.
I agree with JT. The guy hasn't won squat since 1996. Thanks FR for the info.
This presser was terrible and no excuse for it. Just one more in this lazy AD that needs to go.
This presser was terrible and no excuse for it. Just one more in this lazy AD that needs to go.
Let me share something a bit more personal about that “award winning” 1996 Memphis Football Media Guide.
For 19 years prior, the Memphis St. Athletic Dept. protected my privacy regarding a terrible injury that occurred to my teammate on a kickoff we were covering during the Southern Miss game our Sophomore year (1977). The SID at that time even refused to give the Sports Editor for my hometown newspaper (Jackson Sun) my dormitory phone number the morning after the accident. My teammate passed away in 1999 as a result of his injuries.
Yet, in 1996, after my late teammate’s jersey was retired, the “award winning“ Asst SID outed me by name when describing the injury in his “award winning” 1996 media guide. It remained there in all future media guides until 2004 when I first learned of it and complained to the SID (Bob Winn) who had been there since before the accident. (and is STILL there). He removed it from all media guides since and emailed me a written apology.
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Who’s job is it to not only alert/invite the press but to attract them to attend? Especially when you are making a major change of venue!
It is a press conference, not a pep rally. No one can make CRS sound exciting. He is what he is. I don't hear Alabama fans complain that their press conferences are boring. No one has every called Belichick exciting. UT had a guy that "won press conferences", and look at where that got them. I also don't understand the criticism of the timing. Yes, it was during evening rush hour, and 104.5 had CRS and Blankenship on. Probably had more ears tuned in than eyes on a copy of a Saturday DNJ. You can't force media to show up, similar to our fan base.
And I assume you have facts to back up your claim that no P5 team has come calling for Owens?
The things we complain about man...
"I've met better who do more and not schedule conferences like this with no warning and at the time when outlets can't cover it."
"Who’s job is it to not only alert/invite the press but to attract them to attend? Especially when you are making a major change of venue!"
So we are operating under the premise that we didn't give media enough notice to attend, or we aren't making the event attractive enough for media to attend?
I'm going to state that as "my opinion", not fact, but my guess is media didn't turn out in droves because why waste resources to cover a team that doesn't have a lot of demand? What was the attendance for the C-USA championship game? The powers that be at Gannett do not care about MT athletics because MT supporters do not drive subscriptions. We show $$, we get media coverage.
Our athletic dept does something outside of the normal box, and they still get bashed.
Kickoff can't get here quick enough.
"Who’s job is it to not only alert/invite the press but to attract them to attend? Especially when you are making a major change of venue!"
So we are operating under the premise that we didn't give media enough notice to attend, or we aren't making the event attractive enough for media to attend?
I'm going to state that as "my opinion", not fact, but my guess is media didn't turn out in droves because why waste resources to cover a team that doesn't have a lot of demand? What was the attendance for the C-USA championship game? The powers that be at Gannett do not care about MT athletics because MT supporters do not drive subscriptions. We show $$, we get media coverage.
Our athletic dept does something outside of the normal box, and they still get bashed.
Kickoff can't get here quick enough.
Maybe he loves living in Murfreesboro? Heck, he’s a Hokie alum and with his connections to Lansden, I figured he would already be back in Blacksburg.
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Space implied that he was not aware of the presser in the first post in this thread.
You're telling me that the athletic dept. has a press conference and the moderator of the only fan forum the damn school has is not made aware of it?
I can't defend or condemn the timing of the press conference (I've already said it think having it in Nashville is a good move) but I do know that every sports media person in the area should have been notified and a good time shown to those who did show up. I don't care if the only thing a person does is provide color for the radio broadcast of a high school team in the area they should be on the list of media persons to invite to a MT event. Show those who have any media presence that MT cares about them.
I don't know if the press conference had any effect on coverage on the 6 and 10 TV sports news (they are not appointment TV for me any more) but I do know there has not been one damn word in The Tennessean three days later. Of course there has not been anything on the C-USA event held in Texas either: no article, no pre-season all-conference list, no pre-season poll; not one thing. But the FCS OVC had a nice article with pre-season teams and the poll. Of course, the OVC held their press event in Nashville. Oh yeah, that's where we just had a press conference.
I'm not disagreeing with you. My point is, just because certain media outlets weren't represented doesn't mean they weren't invited.
Personally, I enjoyed the press conference. Watched the live feed from MT's twitter account and listened to the interviews on 104.5
I feel like we are saying the same thing, just coming from different angles. We are all frustrated by lack of media coverage. The question is why the lack of coverage. I personally do not believe the answer is due to our Media Relations dept. The DNJ coverage is a shell of what is was 20 years ago. Like many of you, I find that extremely frustrating. Our fan base is frustrated in general. Attendance is a direct reflection of that. I'm as "True Blue" as anyone, but the product has gotten stale, and it is hard to promote a stale product. And why would media outlets use resources to cover a product that frankly doesn't move the needle like it used to?
The chicken and the egg, I guess.
Personally, I enjoyed the press conference. Watched the live feed from MT's twitter account and listened to the interviews on 104.5
I feel like we are saying the same thing, just coming from different angles. We are all frustrated by lack of media coverage. The question is why the lack of coverage. I personally do not believe the answer is due to our Media Relations dept. The DNJ coverage is a shell of what is was 20 years ago. Like many of you, I find that extremely frustrating. Our fan base is frustrated in general. Attendance is a direct reflection of that. I'm as "True Blue" as anyone, but the product has gotten stale, and it is hard to promote a stale product. And why would media outlets use resources to cover a product that frankly doesn't move the needle like it used to?
The chicken and the egg, I guess.
You know how TV works right? What time do they go on air? 6:00 What time was the presser? The 10pm stuff is a non issue because it has to be in the can before 7 unless it's a live game. They would have to write up the coverage and edit material. They scheduled this thing as an afterthought. I have several friends in the media here and none knew about it . 2 guys said they heard but it wasn't til day of less than 2 hours before. It's his job to plan that better. The moderator of this board and all of us didn't know. Come on man, it's a sh!t show up there and has been for a while. 19 years of the same thing bro. Going up to Nashville ain't outside the box, it's something that should have happened 19 years ago. SMH.
I don't know much about press conferences, but it seems like a good idea to hold one in the media capital Nashville to get your message out to the midstate area. Outside of that though, I don't think MT needs to focus much on Nashville. I think they should focus on Rutherford county and the rest of southern middle TN. Let's face it, MT isn't going to make much headway with the competition in Nashville, but Murfreesboro is a lot closer to the rest of southern middle TN and tickets are bargain compared to events in Nashville.
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