Page 1 of Geeky Pucking Orc

1

ABBY

If there was one thing I did not need on a Tuesday morning, it was a room full of executives staring at me as though I’d suggested we rebrand a funeral home as a destination wedding venue.

Which actually sounded kind of cool, when I thought about it.

I stood at the head of the long glass conference table with my clicker in one hand and my coffee in the other. The coffee was not technically allowed in the tenth-floor boardroom ever since somebody spilled a bright blue energy drink on the ivory plush carpet but coffee was necessary if I was ever going to get through this presentation, and I was confident of my grip on the mug.

In front of me sat six old white guys. On the wall behind me, the first slide of my presentation glowed in bold green and gold.

THE BALTIMORE TUSKS:

FROM SIDE-SHOW ODDITY TO FAN OBSESSION

I was a little uncomfortable about that title, but what else could I call Baltimore’s newest professional sports team which was made up entirely of orcs that couldn’t skate and didn’t know how to play hockey? The title had punch. It was bold. It had the kind of confidence that hopefully made six old white guys believe I knew exactly what I was doing, even when the thing I was proposing sounded mildly insane.

“This is our chance to represent a major sports franchise. The Baltimore Tusks currently have nothing in terms of marketing or public relations. We’d be starting with a clean slate and would be able to attribute every very single bit of visibility to our efforts. Success with the Tusks will open the door for other opportunities in sports PR, which has been an untapped market for our firm. Today, the Tusks. Tomorrow the Ravens, the Orioles, the Wizards, and maybe even teams outside the DC/Baltimore area. This is an opportunity for us to get our foot in the door and become the firm promoting big league sports teams in the North Atlantic Region.”

The old white men stared at me with varying degrees of skepticism.

Graham Pike, our CEO, steepled his fingers and gave me an expression he usually reserved for over-budget project updates, and minor plumbing emergencies. Mike Burns from finance had already reached the point of open disbelief. Ted Lin, head of Marketing and Media Strategy, wore the patient, exhausted face of a man who knew this meeting was going to run over into his next meeting.

I smiled anyway and clicked to the next slide.

“Sports audiences are loyal, emotionally invested, and highly active online,” I said, using the laser pointer to tap on the slide’s demographics data. “The Tusks are the first sports franchise with an all-supernatural team. Orcs are a lesser-known supernatural race and thus the Tusks have an opportunity to draw an audience on that novelty. With targeted campaigns and high saturation, the Tusks are primed for breakout engagement in the national market.”

The next slide appeared: charts, numbers, screenshots, audience trend lines. It was clean, factual, and hopefully persuasive.

“The Baltimore Tusks are sitting on a gold mine of untapped brand potential. They have a built-in regional fan base, a novelty factor that will drive curiosity outside the mid-Atlantic, and exactly the kind of strong visual identity that performs well on short-form video.”

I paused to let that sink in, hoping that my bright smile, energy, and the use of corporate buzzwords in my presentation convinced the C-suite of Charm City Marketing and Promotions to green-light my proposal.

The Baltimore Tusks were the newest National Hockey League team. The first for Baltimore. And the only team in the league with supernatural players. Orcs. The Tusks were all orcs on the ice, and their lack of marketing burned a hole in my stomach worse than that time I ate Sichuan Hot Pot. For me, this was about spinning an incredible campaign which would become the envy of any sports team, but for the six men sitting around the conference room table, it was about the bottom line.

Jerome Wheeler leaned back in his chair. “Novelty factor,” he repeated. “You mean because they’re orcs.”

I winced. Jerome took a hard stance on not using racial or national identity as the sole driving force of a campaign. And he was right. While our firm would want to highlight that a client was a fifth-generation African American owned business, or that a client’s amazing menu came from their family’s Lebanese heritage, those factors needed to be the spice, not the meat.

“I mean because they’re memorable,” I said smoothly. “Yes, they’re orcs. They look different. They have a different culture and background. And while that will initially draw some people to click on a video or post, it’s their ability to provide an exciting sports experience that will keep engagement high. We’ll cast a wide net, but ultimately, we’ll narrow that down to existing hockey fans and those who don’t yet know they’re hockey fans.”

Cue the arguments:

“They haven’t won a game yet.”

“Most games they don’t even score a goal.”

“Seats haven’t been full since that first game.”

“And the world loves an underdog,” I countered. “They’re trying. They’re learning. And no matter what the more skilled human team dishes out, they don’t give up. That’s a selling point. It’s a feature, not a bug.”

“It’s a feature until people get tired of them losing,” Mike pointed out.

“They’ll improve.” I hoped they improved. “And people will love to be on the ground floor of the journey.”

“People still go to White Sox games,” Ted pointed out. “And Cubs games. And Bears games.”

“That’s Chicago,” Graham told him. “They’re happy to pay good money to go to a game and boo their team and throw things at them on the field. Baltimore is different. Fans here will just stay home or go to the Inner Harbor and eat crabs or something.”