Excited for the NBA Finals? The Lakers – Celtics rematch starts today and should draw great ratings and be a damn good series (I got Boston in seven). In fact, Andrew Ungvari over at Bleacher Report thinks it could be the best Finals in 20 years and makes a solid argument. Yup, the match-up that pits the past two NBA champs and two most decorated teams against one another will be entertaining TV, but everyone knows that. What is more unknown is if a fun idea to engage the crowd through Twitter can continue to pick up momentum during the games in Boston.
ESPN’s Bill Simmons unrolled a cool campaign during the Eastern Conference semifinals to see if he could “mobilize Celtics chants during a playoff game” by tweeting a chant suggestion and seeing if any of the arena would actually do it. As you’ll see in the video below – in which the result of one such chant that Simmons tweeted is shown – they did. David Stern couldn’t have been too pleased.
If Simmons does indeed continue using his Celtics Chants account to connect with fans this series he should be able to come up with good material to work with. Lakers reserve Sasha Vujacic might be the most unlikable player in the league, so if he gets any playing time I can see him being a victim. And there will surely be reports in the coming days comparing Kobe to Jordan again, so chants like “Mike had le-ss, clap clap clap clap clap” to reference MJ winning titles with less talent around him may catch on in the Garden. And let’s not forget that the loony Ron Artest and a husband of a Kardashian play for LA. So there’s material. But even if the idea died last series, it was fun to see yet another way social media is being used as a platform to reach fans that may be indicative of the type of in-arena marketing we’ll see more of.