Locked On Titans - Daily Podcast On The Tennessee Titans - Locked on Titans: Dead last in fan equity? Episode 2 of Igniting the Fire

Episode Date: June 27, 2018

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Welcome in to another edition of Locked on Titans. I'm Jimmy Morris, joined as always by Terry Lambert. Terry, how are you today? Doing pretty good. What's going on, man? Not too much. We've got a few things to talk about today. We're going to talk about a fan index type thing that came out yesterday and where the Titans rank in that. So we've got a little discussion around that. Igniting the Fire, episode 2, came out on Tuesday night, last night, so we'll talk a little bit about that as well. Before we do that, we'll do our normal reminders. We write for musicitymiracles.com, government of Titans for SB Nation, so you can check out our work there.

You can also follow us on Twitter. I'm at jmorrismcm. Terry is at tlambertfb. Podcast account at LockedOnTitans, so you can follow us there. Subscribe to the podcast, rate and review all that stuff, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever it is that you listen to podcasts so do all that stuff help us out we'd appreciate it um all right so this uh fan index type thing i'm trying to figure out exactly what it was called nfl fan and brand report 2018 uh came out a guy i guess from emory

university uh went through this and kind of ranked all these things. There was an overall rank, and that was based on three ranking criteria, fan equity, social equity, and road equity. And we'll talk a little bit more about those as we go through and what each of them mean. But the Titans were dead last in the overall rankings, and they were 28th in fan equity, 30th in social equity, and 30th in road equity. Terry, I'll let you kick off this discussion. What did you take from this? I'm not really surprised. You said you weren't either.

We talked last week about doing this Ignite the Fire thing and how the Titans just really haven't done a very good job of sticking with the fan engagement stuff. You said this last week,

I don't know if it was on there or not, but the Titans came on to the Nashville scene with McNair and that Super Bowl team. So they really didn't have to work very hard to generate interest. It was already there. Since then, they've struggled to find an identity there have been some really bad teams so i think they've kind of gotten behind that eight ball there and then we we go back to last year

fan support wasn't there despite the team being in the playoffs you know we talked about this a lot i think the fans were a little bit smarter. They kind of knew what was going on. They knew the Titans were greatly overachieving even though they were in the playoffs. Not all that surprising. If any of you have been to a Titans game in the past five

years, the stands will tell you that story. I've been to some games where it's legitimately 50-50, depending on who the road team is. So not a ton of Titans support here, which seems just super odd to say. I didn't think they'd be last, but I thought they'd be near the bottom for sure. That's the thing.

I mean, you never like to look at a list like this and see your team last. Behind some teams that you think of not having a very good national perception, but if we stepped outside of being in Middle Tennessee, being Titans fans, I think we would feel the same way about the Titans that

people do about the Browns. We hear people around here talk about, because look, it's been forever since the Titans have been good. It's been forever since, you know, before these last couple years. It's been forever since they've had a transcendent star. And I think that those things play into some of these types of things because you're going to have your local fan base. You're going to have your local market.

Those people are going to be fans of the team. And, you know, in Middle Tennessee, I would say the vast majority of people that you run into here are Titans fans. It's changing a little bit because we're having so many people move to Nashville. It's become, you know, sort of the it city. And so you've got a lot of transplants here where that wasn't the case, you know, even five or ten years ago, but especially not when they first came here in 99. It was more of the, you know, homegrown people that had been here all their lives. Now you've got more of the others, so you do have more fan bases that are coming in here now.

But to really have a national pool, you've got to either be in a huge market, have a huge star, or have a run of success. Well, the Titans haven't had any of the three of those. Terry and I were talking about this before we came on here. Think about the last player that this team has had that some kid in Kansas wanted to be a Titans fan because of. You pick the Titans as your team on Madden because of this guy. If you pick up Madden and you can pick any team, you're going to pick the Packers because they have Aaron Rodgers. Or you're going to pick the Patriots because they have Tom Brady. All these different types of things.

The Titans haven't had that guy. Chris Johnson was the last really big star that this team had, but it was for such a short time that I don't think it really had the time to build anything. I think, honestly, you have to go back to the Eddie George McNair days that you had a couple of guys on the team that really inspired people all across the country to want to follow this team. And, again, a lot of it goes back to two things, fantasy football and Madden. When was the last time that you had a Titans player that was a first-round pick

in fantasy football? It was Chris Johnson. But, honestly, by the time that people started picking Chris Johnson the first round, he was kind of on the descent. And so he let people down. Before that, it was Eddie George. And Eddie George hasn't played for the Titans in a really long time, like 15 years. So I think all of that factors into where they are as far as just the national perception. And then like you said, we talked about it last week too this the marketing team here didn't have to work very hard in the beginning there was such a fever for

the team they were so good all that kind of stuff happened and then i think they kind of continue to do the same kind of things the team got bad and so many people fell away they've ramped it up lately you got to give them a lot of credit for what they've been doing lately they've done they've done a lot of cool stuff um igniting the fire which we're going to talk about a little bit um that's just one more thing that you know even five years ago than i've done so they are doing their best to to change some of that kind of stuff at least as much as they can in-house but honestly for the fans to buy in for the fan base to build around the country you have to put a winner on the field we hope that they're about

to do that but i mean i think that as much as anything is what's hurting this, is what has the Titans last, is that they haven't been good, so nobody cares about them. Yeah, at the end of the day, it's wins and losses. And, you know, if you're a smaller market team, which the Titans still are, you know, Nashville's booming now, but it's still a smaller market comparison. If you're not winning games in a smaller market, then you're going to be at the bottom of this list. uh things like having a transcendent talent like you talked about having

that that guy in fantasy football that guy you pick on whatever dfs site you use weekly uh that stuff helps uh but certainly putting a winner on the field uh and you know the titans just haven't been exciting uh you talk about fantasy football when's the what's the player you have to have on your fantasy team it goes all the way back to chris johnson uh really for only that one season uh i guess you can make an argument for delaney walker but he's more of a mid mid-round guy uh titans just haven't put an exciting product on the field so i think that's, at the end of the day, that change in coaching staff was made. I think you're looking for a more explosive,

more exciting product on the field. And I really think ownership's eyes were open when the Titans won all those games last year, made a little bit of a run in the playoffs, and fan support still wasn't there. So hats off to them once again made a little bit of a run in the playoffs, and fan support still wasn't there. So hats off to them once again for having the awareness to make a change and to put a more exciting product on the field, we hope. Yeah, absolutely.

And they've got some pieces there now. You've got Marcus Mario, the Heisman winner, has a big national following. You've got Derrick Henry, a Heisman winner. I think his impact on the fan base nationally is less because being from the South, I think you have a lot of people that were fans of his in college that were already Titans fans or whatever. But how many teams have two Heisman winners on their team?

They've got some stuff going for them there, but like you said, at the end of the day, it's about winning football games. Until they start to consistently do that you're going to be stuck in um what where where they have been for the last the last you know decade really um and i and again we all we hope that that's about to change and this is about to take off we i mean i think it is but you know it's it's it's kind of too early to tell on all that and so we'll have to kind of see how it all plays out. I don't have a good way of giving you the link. From the podcast account at Locked on Titans,

I sent out a link on Twitter to this study that we're talking about, so if you want to go and look at it and see. And just kind of looking at the top of the list, you've got Cowboys, Patriots, Eagles, Giants, Steelers, Bears, Saints, Broncos, Pack packers 49ers is your top 10 and the thing that you you see there is success or um a quarterback play right good quarterbacks or big markets right any any of those teams that you see there that that's kind of what they have i think with with the exception of the bears on that list and and probably the 49ers more so too, not a lot of success recently. But when you talk about the Bears and the history they have, the market of Chicago,

it makes sense as to why they would be up there. And they're fourth in fan equity, but 12th in social equity and road equity. So I think that the people that are bought into them are really bought in still, and they're still going to games and all that kind of stuff but as far as the national you know people that were bears fans because of you know whatever really that's been back to the to the 80s really the mid-80s if you want to look at that when when the you know the nation was was in was in love with the bears um you know you've seen some of that that kind of stuff fall away so you know it's just it's interesting to look at that and again the the nashville i think will eventually become it's not ever going to be like a new york

or chicago market but if it keeps growing like it has been they'll be you know mid to upper market at some point but even with that they don't have the history that some of these other teams do so it's going to have to take putting a consistent winning product on the field before you see really any kind of huge difference in this. I mean, they're going to tick up a couple spots if they have a couple of good seasons. But until you see them get in the top half of these rankings, it's going to take a five-year run of sustained success. Yeah, there's some surprises near the bottom of the list, too.

You talk about some of those original NFL teams that have done it forever. Raiders kind of moved around, but Raiders were near the bottom, in the bottom half of that list. That's surprising because I've been to a Titans-Raiders game in Nashville, a couple of them, and Raiders fans show up. Raiders actually were fourth in road equity. So, surprising they're not higher on that list. And then you look at the Chiefs.

The Chiefs were 30th overall. You hear so much about Arrowhead and see that place on TV, and it's rocking and always full. So, that's surprising to see. And you get the Chargers with their move on down on the list. But teams like the Browns and the Jaguars and the Rams, Rams who moved to L.A. are still higher than the Titans. So Titans are way on down the list.

Again, I thought they'd be down there. I'm not sure that I thought they'd be last, though. Yeah, and like you said, I think the biggest surprise to me is the Chiefs. Like you said, when Arrowhead, I mean, you know, that's the whole thing. You don't want to go to Arrowhead in December, right? I mean, we heard all about that, what was it, two years ago? Yeah. Titans don't seem to have a problem doing that, by the way.

No, they haven't. They haven't. But, yeah, so, I mean, that probably is the biggest surprise to me on the list is how low they were. And just for their fan equity to be 29, that was a little bit surprising to me. But anyway, so yeah, like I said, you can go to atlactontitan on Twitter. I tweeted out the link.

You can see that there. And I'll post it when we write up this podcast as well on UCmiracles.com. So if you want to look into that and look at the measurements that they use and that kind of stuff. All right, so that'll conclude that. Coming up, we'll talk a little bit

about episode two of Igniting the Fire. All right, so that'll conclude that. Coming up, we'll talk a little bit about Episode 2 of Igniting the Fire. All right, so Episode 1 we talked about last week. Igniting the Fire was all about Coach Vrabel. Very well done, I thought. We talked about the insight into him and his ability to relate to the players and all that kind of stuff. And I thought that came through a little bit in this second episode as well. I think the more that I see with him interacting with players the

more comfortable i become with him as the head coach and again we go back to some of this media stuff that it's been talked about on and off throughout this off season and you know guys saying that if he cares about this little stuff he's carrying out this little stuff in all these other places and it's going to rub people the wrong way i don't think that's going to be a problem at all with the with him and how he relates to the team. This episode was about the offense, about Matt LaFleur and Pat O'Hara and their work with the quarterbacks. And then kind of the second half of the episode was about Rob Moore

and his interaction with the new wide receivers coach. Terry, just kind of initial impressions of what we saw last night. A little disappointed just in that it was billed as the quarterback episode. You're going to get to see Marcus Mariota, and you're going to get to see Pat O'Hara work with his quarterbacks. Didn't get to see a whole lot. Obviously the draw here is Mariota, and we didn't really get a ton of insight there. We got the typical Marcus is great.

He's got a great work ethic. He works very hard, and that's about it. O'Hare did talk about widening his base, which we heard a lot about. But outside of that, not a whole lot on Mariota, which is surprising considering that is the draw to this team. That's who everyone clamors for. That's who everyone wants to hear from. So you talk about building fan equity.

I think getting your quarterback in front of a camera a little bit more would be a way to do that. Titans didn't choose to. I mean, they chose to put Gabbert on screen with Luke Falk just as much as Mariota. Were you surprised by that? Yeah, I was a little bit. Like you said, there wasn't a whole lot of behind-the-scenes type of information.

I want some inside-of-the-gods personalities and that type of stuff. To be fair, with Marcus Mariota, I think that um that there's ever going to be i don't know he's a pretty closed off guy i don't think you're ever going to really see anything differently from him than what he portrayed i think that's who he is but yeah it didn't seem to like really they talked about mario but they also talked about gary they'll talk about luke falk there wasn't a whole lot of like he didn't get that much extra screen screen time considering he's the franchise quarterback. So I was a little bit surprised by that.

You know, they did the thing on the assistant equipment manager. That was cool. And it's cool to get to see some of that behind-the-scenes stuff and those guys that we typically don't know anything about. I've seen that guy up in the practice field before, but didn't know who he was, didn't know anything about him. So that kind of stuff is kind of cool to see. But, yeah, I'm with you.

I mean, just a little bit disappointed overall in what they've brought out so far. And hopefully we'll get to see. I just want to see, and we were talking about this before we came on, more of even like the mic'd up stuff that you get after a game sometimes with the guys, with their interaction during the game, in this case during practices, during stretching, all that stuff. We talked about the trailer that we saw before this started a week ago with Dory Jackson talking about it being like our own hard knocks type thing.

I expect it to be more of that kind of stuff. And this stuff, to me, if you've watched the Titans All Access that they've done really ever since they've been here with Mike Keith, I mean, it's cool. You get to see them talk to some guys that sometimes you don't hear from, and you get a little more detail on things that go on. But it's not really an insight into the personality of the players, and I was just kind of hoping to get a little bit more of that. Yeah, the biggest thing for me was seeing Corey Davis go at full speed,

who was supposedly limited throughout OTAs. He didn't look very limited to me uh getting off of jams and jumping up and making catches so uh you saw him interacting with rob moore who uh who i thought came across pretty well on the episode you saw him talking to uh cory davis about his release about stabbing that foot and getting up the field uh you saw him getting on Taewon Taylor for not getting his head around quick enough and kind of leaving his quarterback out to dry. So that part was cool. But, again, yeah, like you said, not a lot of personality to get into there.

It's more of showing a clip on the field and asking a coach how he coaches. So I'd like to see Corey Davis. I'd like to see him have a conversation with Marcus Mariota. I think that would go over well. I want to see guys stretching and what they're talking about stretching even if it's not about football. That's how you're going to build

fan interest. That's how you're going to build that fan equity that we talked about. So far, not getting a ton of it. It's their first time doing this. It's only a what, a 14-minute episode, so we're not getting the hard knocks here. We're not getting that kind of access. So grateful to have something, but it could be a little better.

Yeah, and they said 10 episodes, right, when they initially came out. So you're running into the middle of August at that point. So you'll get hopefully some stuff from training camp uh pretty soon game or two um maybe you'll get a little bit more once once it starts to get into that kind of stuff um so yeah hopefully hopefully that's what we'll see and like you said it's the first time of them doing this and it is it's it's a good thing and i'm glad they're doing it but just kind of a couple different directions that we might want to see them go in. So we'll continue to keep an eye on that. And, again, at least it gives us something to watch,

something to talk about during these weeks here that there's nothing else going on. And, again, you know, this is the era of no news is good news thing. And like we talked about before, we want to hear a contract extension for Taylor LeJuan, anything else we want our players to stay out of the news um you know no no dead bodies found anybody's houses right that's not a good thing it could always be worse right it could always be worse so um in case you didn't hear that story generous jenkins was probably not home but somebody was was murdered in his house and so that's so that's the whole thing that they're going to be going through and ending it that's going to be a story at the beginning of camp because even if everything's

worked everything's worked out resolved here in the next couple weeks the media is not going to see him until camp and so that's all that stuff's gonna be and you just don't want you just don't want those distractions that kind of stuff obviously you don't want somebody to die but you know just from a from a football perspective um you you don't want those type of distractions and things coming in and so hopefully we won't see anything like that uh over the next couple of weeks. But all right, so that'll do it for today's episode. Again, thanks for listening.

Keep plugging in. We'll continue to have these episodes. We'll do some more career retrospectives type things as we go through this. And we'll be on museummiracles.com. We'll be cranking out stuff there. We'll get into fantasy content and all that kind of stuff as we get closer to that because i know people start ramping up their fantasy drafts and all that kind of stuff so we'll start talking a little bit more about all that stuff as well

so uh for terry this is jimmy sam thanks for listening and we will talk to you again later