The Jazz and their 'Newspeak Arena' have the best crowd in the NBA

I can’t hear you, let’s get loud in here! A figure on a giant screen demands this from you. The screen hovers in the center of a massive gathering. Happy and forceful compliance is replied by tens of thousands of people dressed in uniformity.

It sounds like the start of a book by George Orwell or Aldous Huxley, but it is in fact the current trend sweeping the NBA playoffs.

Last spring, when the Miami Heat made their surprising championship run, one simple-yet-clever marketing campaign transformed a sleepy uninvolved crowd into an intimidating and unified monster. The Heat’s marketing folks provided the entire lower bowl of their arena with all white T-shirts. Rather than seeing high-priced lawyers, trophy wives, and corporate executives, Heat opponents saw thousands of angry jurors staring back at them.

These days, in Salt Lake’s own Newspeak Arena — excuse me, “Energy Solutions” — thousands of faces blend into one. A sea of powder blue T-shirts take on the quality of a school of fish. Let’s go Jazz! The mass of blue shouts.

Last week, the Utah Jazz marketing team followed Miami’s lead and passed out baby blue shirts to their entire lower bowl. With the Jazz on board, the Leni Riefenstahl era of the NBA officially began—American professional sports teams are delving into a new phase with deep sociological meaning. For some reason, sports marketers are now taking cues from famous military propagandists and public manipulators.

Historically, militaristic regimes have used massive coordinated demonstrations to inspire awe in friends and intimidation in foes. (In the early 1930s, Hitler and Mussolini’s public relations men took advantage of this sociological phenomenon on their way to conquering Europe.) However, let’s not get carried away. The sea of Jazz blue is just a harmless visual metaphor, right? Massive coordinated demonstrations of collective identity do not have to be violent or sinister—they can be utilized in pastel and even sponsored by a large corporation (what could be more benign?). The Jazz are again back on top and that’s what’s most important, isn’t it?

Perhaps, but while the Jazz may not have faced a superior basketball team in their Western Conference semifinal against the Golden State Warriors, their Bay Area opponent offered a better way to encourage fan enthusiasm.

After enduring a dozen losing seasons, the public relations folks at the Warriors adopted the slogan, “We Believe.” They inscribed the phrase on thousands of yellow T-shirts that were given out to their entire arena at the beginning of the playoffs.

The Golden State slogan was dreamt up by super-fan, Paul Wong, who started selling homemade placards outside the arena earlier this spring. As the popularity of Wong’s idea caught on, the Warrior’s management snapped it up. The response was a marketers dream. Yellow “We Believe” shirts with a giant Comcast cable logo on the backside (the side the TV camera sees) became the hottest thing in town. Columnists and commentators around the Bay Area began writing about how the Warriors had united the town in a way they’d never seen before.

Meanwhile the Jazz’s current slogan “It’s Electrifying!” does not inspire ticket sales, but unintentional comedy. As is the case for Utah and most national trends, we’re still a little behind the curve. The massive T-shirt campaign isn’t our own, we are just borrowing it.

The Jazz have some of the best fans in the NBA and may have a legitimate shot at the NBA title, but as an organization they have a long way to go as far as utilizing the impressive fan culture that already exists.

There is a ground swell of intelligent, funny, and insightful Jazz fanatics and their energies are just waiting to be tapped. The Jazz should hone this creativity rather than resist, or ignore it. Here are a few simple and easily adopted suggestions:

Rather than give fans uniforms so they can fit into an impressive television display, set up more public viewing areas so those who can’t afford the high ticket prices can watch together. Inside the arena, encourage a culture of authenticity. Bring back a live band, like the one they used to have in the old Salt Palace.

Try turning off the canned noise, video advertisements, and constant clamber from the Jumbotron. The loudest and most intimidating noise comes from a knowledgeable and fanatical crowd naturally responding to the game. The giant screen only functions like an insulting Sesame Street for adults. (Check out this clip of Greek basketball fans -- this is what happens when you combine the real fan culture of soccer and put it in a basketball arena; thank 39&1/2 feet for sending this).

When the Jazz marketers distributed their free blue tees to only the lower half of the arena (the portion visible to TV cameras), they illustrated that cutting costs is more important to them than disrespecting their loyal fans. I realize many of my suggestions might seem cost inefficient, so I have one last one: learn a key lesson from the recent Golden State experience—allow real fan culture to grow into something unique, then repackage and sell it back to the community.

Golden State’s “We Believe” campaign became infectious because it felt real. The organization looked to the community for direction, rather than constructing directives and imposing them on their audience. Instead of copying some other teams idea of what real fans look like, the Jazz simply need to give their true fans the space and opportunity to create their own reasons to believe.