Sports Radio Interviews

Brandt Andersen’s Halftime Promotion Might’ve Been the Worst One Ever

So it wasn’t a terrible idea at first.  After Michael Jordan took some shots at Bryon Russell during his Hall-Of-Fame induction speech, the owner of the D-League’s Utah Flash, Brandt Andersen had an idea for a halftime promotion.  Andersen decided that he was going to try and set up a game of on-on-one between Bryon Russell and Michael Jordan at halftime of the Flash’s home game last night.  There are a couple of things here that I have to say.  Number one is why would Michael Jordan agree to a game of one-on-one with Russell during halftime of a D-League game?  I mean come on.  Normally you have dancers spinning on their heads or you have people riding unicycles or you have the dance team throwing out T-Shirts at halftime.  He’s Michael Jordan.  The greatest basketball player in NBA history in my opinion.  He’s not a half-time act.  Second of all, how entertaining would this possibly be to have a hometown guy like Russell get belted by Jordan in one-on-one?  Because again, it’s Michael Jordan against Bryon Russell.  That would be like putting Kobe Bryant against Raja Bell.  Seriously who do you think would win? 

Needless to say, the promotion did not work.  Russell showed up, but Jordan didn’t and they had a Jordan look-alike play Russell instead.   By the way, the Jordan look-alike was six feet tall.  Had it worked out, it would’ve been one of the greatest half-time shows ever.  Instead people were furious, some even left the building and many have demanded a refund.  Maybe Andersen should just stick to having people throw out T-Shirts at half time.  Then again after a half time flop like this, those might get thrown right back on the court again.

Brandt Anderson joined Into the Night with Tony Bruno  to talk about the failed halftime promotion, the backlash that he has gotten from the fans,  and future halftime entertainment ideas.

On why he thought he could set up this promotion:

“Well I know Bryon Russell pretty well so when he accepted I thought given the competitive spirit of Jordan he might come around and accept this offer.  It was a real offer.  I thought it was possible that it was something that he would accept.  Bryon also thought it was possible.”

On having a Michael Jordan imitator walking around town to get people excited:

“Well, it’s not quite that.  We never said Michael Jordan was there, but we did film some viral footage with a look-alike around town that we had hoped would just leak virally.  We had 95 percent of the tickets sold out at the time that we leaked that viral footage, so the arena was going to be sold out regardless of that footage.  What we had hoped it would do, we were thinking this would be a really interesting way to test the viral strength of the team.  But once that got leaked, one of the papers here picked that up, and I think it changed people’s perception from unlikely that he’s going to be here but it’s worth us going to check it out to people really thinking he was going to be there.”

On why he couldn’t get a taller look-alike:

“No this was the guy.  Again, there was no intention to make this guy…we didn’t want to drag this thing out with people.  We weren’t trying to make people feel like…we put this guy out locally and we were trying to get some viral footage out there, but we figured at the same time, there would be footage disputing it because the guy is just not a big guy.  But then people were very, very excited and what I thought would be very funny and end with a laugh because of this look-alike ended with a thud.”

On the crowd’s reaction to the spoof:

“People were booing, but it was more silent than anything and people did not leave at the half like has been reported.  Certainly a few hundred people left, but really the exodus started to happen in the fourth quarter as the game looked like it was getting out of control.  There was a line over a mile long to get into this place.  I think people started to leave because they were worried about the issue of getting out of the parking lot in the fourth quarter and maybe three T-shirts were thrown onto the floor so it wasn’t as dramatic as it’s been reported.  (Host: I am just reading the Associated Press story)  And I’m just telling you that I was there.  I was sitting at center court and I was very nervous as soon as it happened that there would be a mass exodus and it just didn’t go that way.”

On the backlash that he has gotten from fans:

“There were several fans that called in today to get tickets to other games, we gave a few refunds today, but it was nothing outrageous.  What we heard from our season ticket base is that we got that it was stunt.  I’m taking a lot of heat online and you know what?  I’m very sorry that it blew up the way it did.  It wasn’t my intention to make people…I realize that people’s emotions really got involved here and that’s why there’s so much hate going on.  I’m sorry.  I take the blame for it.  What was meant to be funny really ended up being stupid.  I’m taking it on the chin over it.”  

Listen to Utah Flash Owner Brandt Andersen with Tony Bruno here (Audio at the 2:45 mark) 

Tags: Brandt Andersen, Bryon Russell, Michael Jordan, NBDL, Utah Flash