It’s often funny when people don’t know their audience and shoot themselves in the foot as a result. One recent NFL example of this came from NFL Network’s Deion Sanders calling Tennessee Titans’ All-Pro safety Kevin Byard “a fan,” and former Oakland Raiders’ executive/current CBS analyst/current BIG3 board chair Amy Trask (seen above with famed Raiders’ fan Ice Cube during her stint with the team) shared another one on Tuesday night. Here’s Trask’s discussion of how a Raiders’ sales rep tried to sell her on tickets (in Vegas in 2020; they still haven’t even confirmed where they’re playing this coming season) by emphasizing the team’s history of hiring minorities and women…including her.
Raise your hand if you think it’s funny that I got a “cold call” from someone trying to sell me seating product at the new @raiders stadium in Las Vegas – raise your hand if you think it’s funny that he explained that the team has a rich (1/2) pic.twitter.com/wKKCJGxTIf
— Amy Trask (@AmyTrask) January 9, 2019
(2/2) tradition which includes hiring the first female executive in the @NFL – and raise your hand if you think it’s funny that I replied (very nicely) “oh wow, I didn’t know that, that’s neato.” https://t.co/CUKekyDvO7
— Amy Trask (@AmyTrask) January 9, 2019
On one level, it’s understandable how that happened. The team’s sales office presumably developed a script, or at least points to emphasize in any given call, that included playing up their historical tradition of diverse hires, and that’s not the worst approach in the world. (Especially considering that the current team is having, uh, some struggles.) And “We hired the first female executive in the NFL” isn’t necessarily the worst pitch to make to female fans (although many probably already know that.) And Trask’s number was presumably on some long list they’re cold-calling, so it’s possible that the sales rep involved here didn’t even knew the name associated with the number. (If that name was on the list too, though, a Raiders’ sales rep should probably think about who “Trask” might be, considering that she was the team’s CEO from 1997-2013 and worked for them for almost three decades in various roles.) But this still led to quite the funny mistake, especially with Trask deadpanning it on the phone and then tweeting about it.Overall, it’s debatable if cold-calling people to try and sell them tickets almost two years ahead of when your team will start play in Vegas is an effective strategy, but maybe the Raiders are finding some success with it. We don’t know. We certainly know that one of their sales reps wound up referencing Amy Trask’s hire to Trask herself, though, and that’s pretty funny.
