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Will the Eskimos' "Horrible Human Beings" ads backfire against the Roughriders Friday night?
The Edmonton Eskimos made plenty of headlines off the field with this week's radio ads that dubbed Saskatchewan Roughriders' fans "horrible human beings" ahead of Friday night's game between the squads (10 p.m. Eastern, TSN/ESPN3), and those ads may have been a factor in attracting fans of both teams. As of Thursday afternoon, 39,789 tickets had been sold for the game, the biggest CFL audience by far this season. However, as Terry Jones of The Edmonton Sun writes, B.C.'s Guaranteed Win Night against Saskatchewan earlier this season provided extra motivation for the Roughriders to pull off a victory, and this promotion could backfire on the field as well:
“Horrible human beings.”
In the name of Hugh Campbell, Ron Lancaster, Jordan Eberle and all the wonderful people from that province who have raised families here and become part of the fabric of this community, why would anyone think there’s humour there somewhere?
Stubble jumpers, combine pilots … all that stuff is meant in fun. But “horrible human beings?”
And why would you give a Saskatchewan football team with thousands and thousands of their own fans in the stands manufactured motivation?
Better off to have held another ‘Guaranteed Win Night.’
‘Horrible Human Being Night’ is another fail for this franchise.
While it was created to sell tickets, it says here there’s potential it could cost them a home playoff date just like ‘Guaranteed Win Night’ did the Lions.
On the field, the Eskimos would seem to have somewhat of an edge heading into this one. Yes, they're 8-4 and the Roughriders are 9-3, and yes, Saskatchewan's coming off a win while Edmonton's coming off a loss, but the Eskimos narrowly fell on the road to an up-and-coming 4-7 Hamilton team, while the Roughriders just about lost at home to the 1-10 Ottawa Redblacks. Edmonton also has an experienced and proven quarterback under centre in Mike Reilly, while Saskatchewan's still seeing what they have in second-year man Tino Sunseri. However, the Eskimos' comments may well add a little fuel to the Riders' fire.
Beyond the direct motivational impact on the players, there are also ancillary impacts to consider. It's going to be interesting to see how this affects the mix of people in the stands; plenty of Rider fans were going to be in attendance before Edmonton said anything, but will this encourage even more to come out? Will it have the desired effect of bringing more Eskimos' fans out and providing more of a home-field advantage? That will be tough to predict before game time, but having the fans on your side can be big in this league, especially when they make enough noise to distract and confuse an offence. We'll see which offence winds up being affected by that.
If this winds up attracting more Edmonton fans and they prove important in giving the team a victory, great. Marketing's an important part of this league's success, especially as gate revenue is still such an important part of the financial pie for the CFL's teams, and if advertising this way works for the Eskimos, more power to them. Trolling other fanbases is a long and established part of CFL history, and although it's generally been done in a funnier, more creative and less offensive fashion, it shouldn't be objected to on principle. The execution here from Edmonton seems poor, though, and it may wind up backfiring on them. If the "Horrible Human Beings" come out in force Friday, that may not help the Eskimos' chances.
