Deion walkout a good marketing ploy
If you want to truly understand what Deion Sanders was doing when exclaiming he should be called Mr. Sanders, and not Deion, at a recent SWAC Media Day event, you have to go back to his days as one of the greatest self-promoting athletes of all time. You have to go back to Pizza Hut, a rap song and a helicopter ride.
They are the greatest insight into Sanders’ behavior now, and why he did what he did at that SWAC event, and why it likely won’t be the last such thing Sanders does.
Sanders was remarkably popular in the 1990s. Not in the way LeBron James is now or Michael Jordan was then, but still an excellent self-promoter and marketer. One of the things he did was take advantage of his popularity as both an offensive and defensive player, and signed with Pizza Hut. In one commercial, he appeared with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
The commercials were so popular that on one occasion, they were used against Sanders by a fellow NFL player. When Giants quarterback Dave Brown ran over Sanders, then with the Cowboys, during a 1995 game, Brown told the media after the contest: “When I saw him there, it was either go around him or go through him. Like his commercial said, I guess I did both.”
Sanders also cut a rap video that was actually pretty good.
Then, in one of the most memorable moments in recent sports history, Sanders played an NFL game for the Atlanta Falcons in Miami, returning two kicks and a punt, and also catching one pass. After that, he flew to Pittsburgh, then took a helicopter to Three Rivers Stadium for Game 5 of the 1992 National League championship series against the Pirates. Sanders, an Atlanta Braves outfielder, didn’t play in the game, but his travels were chronicled, just as Sanders wanted.
If there were a Mount Rushmore of self-promoting athletes, a sunglassed Sanders would be on it, right next to Brian Bosworth and Peyton Manning. This brings us back to Mr. Sanders. “You don’t call Nick Saban, ‘Nick.’ Don’t call me Deion,” Sanders told Nick Suss from the Clarion Ledger.
“If you call Nick (Saban), ‘Nick,’ you’ll get cussed out on the spot, so don’t do that to me,” Sanders later added. “Treat me like Nick.”
Sanders walked out after being called Deion a second time.
I can’t say for certain what Sanders did was about self-promotion, and I won’t pretend to know Sanders extremely well. Maybe he didn’t like the questioner, or the media outlet, but after covering so much of Sanders’ NFL career, if I had a house to bet, I’d feel extremely comfortable wagering it that this is Sanders falling back on the old self-promoting Sanders ways.
And I have no problem with this. Neither should you. This is actually a really smart ploy by Sanders.
With this absurd move, Sanders has created a new marketing plan, like the ones he did as a player, and it’s Self-Promotion 101: Create a fake issue; get outraged over the issue; we in the media cover the fake issue; Sanders and his program then get attention they otherwise would not.
Not to mention picking a fight with the media is one of the oldest tricks there is.
And while Sanders’ denial of a credential to a reporter from a local paper because Sanders doesn’t like the coverage is a trash move, and undemocratic, most of this is still about Sanders trying to generate publicity for himself and his program.
This is the uglier side of Sanders’ strategy, in that one case a step too far, but it is a strategy, and it will likely work.
Recruits will see Sanders asking to be called mister as punching back and fighting for the program and players, and thus them. Prospects who may not have been thinking about playing for Sanders might now give him a look. Maybe donations even pick up a bit.
Jackson State, like many HBCU programs, needs (and deserves) money and attention. Sanders is trading on his popularity to boost the fortunes of his program. It’s manipulative, but it’s the right thing to do. It might also work.
Sanders deserves respect because of his football pedigree. He’s a Hall of Famer and, to me (and there will be football types who will absolutely blast me for saying this), he’s a top-five all-time player. When Sanders was at his height, quarterbacks would tell me stories about how coaches instructed them not to throw to Sanders’ side of the field. Not just avoid throwing deep, or short or medium, but avoid the entire side of the field Sanders was on.
He was that good, and it’s likely he’ll be a good head coach.
But make no mistake: This latest situation is Deion, er, Mr. Sanders, being typical Deion, er, Mr. Sanders. He’s falling back on his old marketing roots.
Minus the pizza, helicopters and rap video.
Though that could be next.