Attention Basketball Fans: No One Is Impressed
Enough with the white-outs. Enough with the black-outs. Enough with the last-minute effort to convince people your fans are great. It’s tired. It’s desperate. And frankly, no one cares anymore.
Here’s the thing: when the Miami Heat made their great playoff run back in 2006, it was their fans, not the team, that changed the dynamic of basketball as we know it. Every time the Heat had a home game, thousands of white-clad Miami fanatics packed the American Airlines Arena to support Shaq, D-Wade, J-Dub and the rest. White-hot was the theme. White-hot was the team. It all worked out perfectly, and the normally subdued Miami crowd became legends in their own right.
Now, fast-forward to the ESPN-saturated present, and what we have is an annoying trend that simply needs to stop. Fans all across America, particularly those in college, have adopted the way of the Heat and just can’t get enough of the white-out. Look, I’m all for a fan base getting behind their team and willing them to victory. In fact, there’s nothing I love more than watching a crowd make the difference in a tight game. But if you walk into the arena and a smiling sports marketing major hands you a white t-shirt, know this. Your team is probably on national television. And your team is making a last-ditch effort to compensate for its fans’ lack of enthusiasm.
Think about one of the most lauded fan bases in America – Duke. At Cameron Indoor, you get a group of absolute maniacs, Crazies actually. Some are painted from head to toe. Some have on blue and white wigs. Some just have on their school colors. Either way, this rabid fan base wreaks havoc on the opposing team for 40 minutes, and even for the hour before the game tips off. It’s hot. It’s sticky. And at its peak, it’s downright deafening.
But let me ask you this: Do you think for one minute that Duke’s Cameron Crazies would ever opt for a white-out to get hyped for a big game? Never. Ever. And white’s even a school color.
So please, fans of college teams across the country, I ask that you quit this white-out nonsense and develop some real team spirit. Handing out free giveaways at the front door doesn’t create a hostile environment. It doesn’t make the fans yell louder. And it doesn’t keep them coming night after night. Maybe in the NBA, where the fans are already soft, a marketing ploy like this will work. But not in college. Not now. Not ever.
I have a couple of issues with this. First of all, the Miami Heat did not initiate the whiteout. In the mid-1980s, the Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames were big rivals. In an effort to counter the “Sea of Red” experienced at a Calgary Flames game, Winnipeg began having whiteouts for every game against the Flames. The arena looked like the inside of an igloo. Now, with that being said, I think it is rather obvious that not many people would know this due to the relative obscurity of the NHL, which brings me to my next point. Perhaps the greatest whiteout scenes occur in Happy Valley, where the Penn State Nittany Lions play under the venerable leadership of Joe Pa. We all know that Penn State has arguably the best away jerseys in all of sports; all white. Everything. Helmets. Jerseys. Pants. Socks. In 2004, the student body decided that a great way to develop a home field advantage would be to have everyone wear white. No promotions. No marketing. Just show up in white, all 20,000 plus students. This led to the eventual whiteout of all 121,000 spectators in Happy Valley, the largest being against Ohio State in 2005. Their efforts have had a huge effect on the country, launching copycat sections of solid blocks of team colors at schools and arenas across the nation. Enter the Miami Heat and their White-Hot theme.
The most important part of your argument lies in the marketing/promotional background of some of these feeble attempts of support. That part is crap, and those organizations, whether a school or a professional team, should be utterly ashamed at the lengths they are going to in order to give an appearance of enthusiasm for mediocrity they are putting on the court/field.
Thanks for the post Ryan James. Your points are both well-researched and well-argued. However, I have some objections.
First of all, as the title of the post indicates, I’m addressing basketball fans. Not hockey fans. Not Penn St. fans. I never said the Miami Heat were the founders of the white-out. Rather, I said, “their fans changed the dynamic of basketball as we know it.” Not hockey. Not Penn St. Not sports. Just basketball. However, I think our readers will appreciate knowing where and why the first ever white-out started – that’s good stuff.
Secondly, as Ryan points out, Penn St. does have the classiest uniforms in football. All white. No logos. Classic. So it’s only natural that the fans mimic such a tradition. I applaud them for that. But again, it must be noted that my point applies, as stated above, to “get hyped for a basketball game.” This implies a one-time occurrence. Penn St.’s white-clad fans are as standard as Nebraska’s red, Tennessee’s orange or Kentucky’s blue. It happens every game. It’s the color most synonymous with the school. It’s not a marketing ploy. Large blocks of colors in student sections were not a direct spinoff of a Penn State football game in 2005 as you claim. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that fans of teams like Ohio State and Michigan were wearing their team’s colors to their annual battle a little before 2005, unless Michigan fans are okay being spotted in red that day.
And finally, the Miami Heat did not think of Happy Valley when envisioning their next marketing stunt, let alone a 1980’s hockey game. Nowhere in the Heat’s color scheme does white exist. White hot heat is nothing more than a play on words and a promotion for the guy who thought of it. It lasted no longer than the playoffs in 2006, minus a meager attempt the next year. But what did last is a recurring trend in college basketball that must be stopped. Wear your school colors. Don’t hand out white shirts to make up for school spirit.
Penn St. – as Ryan James suggests, you can wear white. But we all know none of you attends basketball games.
I guess I’m confused because other than that fateful Louisville game against Georgetown when Pitino wore his white linen suit, albeit for only the first half, I do not recall seeing an abundance of whiteouts at college basketball games where white is not a school color. Perhaps I do not watch enough college basketball, but the only other whiteouts I can think of would be Michigan State, but their colors are green and white, and Texas A&M, maroon and white. As far as blackouts, those occur at schools that have black as a color: Mizzou, Purdue, Wake Forest, Georgia, Texas Tech, Vanderbilt, etc. I think that the problem lies in the NBA, not college basketball. But that is due to the die-hard nature of college fans. It’s easy for a college to have a “_____out” (insert color here) because the fans of college sports live and die for their school, heeding the words of Brian Wilson and the other Beach Boys, “be true to your school”. That just doesn’t happen at the NBA level, except for the Heat’s magical run. People wear suits to NBA games, or Rocca Wear, and talk on their blackberries, and hope that they get facetime on the national broadcast. Therefore, NBA franchises must rely on gimmicky marketing ploys to make their fans look passionate; see Washington Wizards.
But enough rambling already. I enjoy the white outs, the black outs, the _______ outs, whatever it is, as long as the shirts aren’t given out at the gate, or resting on your seat when you get in the stadium. I think that basketball arenas look incredible in one color. And I know that the Nittany Lions did not start this tradition.
My bad on bringing up other sports, I completely breezed over the basketball nature of the original post and chose to have tunnel vision towards the color discussion. Partly due to the picture of Happy Valley that you included in the original post (third pic), but my error, nonetheless.
not taking issue with anything said, but if we want to discuss most impressive home crowd in the nba scene. Golden State vs Dallas tops miami heat by far. You could picture everyone in the crowd decked in gold gettin hyphy and ghost riding, smoking blunts and puttin their nuts in dirks grill while they were dunking on his pathetic playoff showing in his mvp season.
i can’t decide if it was baron davis, stephen “stole on you” jackson or my hate for dirk nowitzki and steve nash that had me loving that series to death, but that stands out as one of the best home showings especially for an nba crowd.