"Obama out to score big with prized demographic: sports fans" by Sasha Issenberg, Globe Staff | October 26, 2008
PHILADELPHIA - Sarah Palin remained silent when she walked out onto the Philadelphia Flyers ice to drop the puck before the team's season opener earlier this month, enveloped by a murky mix of boos and cheers from the almost entirely white, largely male crowd she had hoped to win over with the symbolic gesture.
Watch: VIDEO
A clearer political message, however, came through seconds later to those watching the Flyers broadcast at home or in bars. The last ad before the game broadcast on
As the best-financed presidential candidate in history, Obama's words and imagery have reached into nearly every nook of American media culture, nestled even within video games and on his own satellite-television channel. But Obama, who will delay the start of Wednesday's possible World Series Game Six for a 30-minute infomercial, might be making his most aggressive pitch through sports media, which he has used to audition as an all-American everyman before one of the few demographic groups that continue to elude him.
That isn't going to win him any votes! Joe Six-Pack is gonna tune in and wonder where his game is and why this black man is talking. Sort of a flip-side to the 60 Minutes viewer.
"Obama is targeting so much sports programming because it trends very much to younger white males, which has been a reliable Republican bloc but is also very much an independent voting bloc, so they're going after McCain's strength," said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising.
In Pennsylvania, where both sides quietly acknowledge that racial tensions have complicated Obama's efforts to attract white Democrats, sports have played a crucial role in his campaign's outreach during the campaign's closing days. On his previous visit to the state, two weeks ago, the only media interview Obama gave was to a Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist.
Yesterday, Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney and the team's retired running back Franco Harris joined union leaders from a United Steelworkers local on their weekly "Steel Blitz" bus tour on Obama's behalf through Western Pennsylvania.
In March, when Sean Smith first called Sportsradio 610 WIP to offer the Philadelphia station an interview with Barack Obama, a producer hung up on him before he could fully introduce himself as the candidate's Pennsylvania communications director. "I think she thought it was a phone-bank caller from the Obama campaign," Smith recalled.
Obama has now spent over $100,000 to advertise on WIP, compared with only $3,000 by John McCain, according to general sales manager Brian Nagy, who notes the station's strength among men between 25 and 54, a demographic that advertisers often struggle to reach.
Do those guys even vote?
Last week, Obama picked a fantasy football team with "ESPN" columnist Rick Reilly, who wrote that he invited both candidates to participate in the stunt. "Only Obama bit," Reilly wrote.
Even McCain, an avid consumer of "SportsCenter" and the "USA Today" sports pages, has noticed Obama's dominance of his favorite media. "While I don't get much time to watch television on the campaign trail, I did see many of these attack ads watching the Arizona Cardinals play the Dallas Cowboys a few Sundays ago," the senator wrote in a recent fund-raising appeal.
Mark Salter, an adviser who travels with McCain, noted half-jokingly this week that the candidate now rarely tunes in to ESPN in swing-state hotel rooms because it is so saturated by his opponent's presence. "All you see are Obama ads," he said. --more--"
