Your Falcons Minute

How to save the Falcons season, or at least distract people.

Two words: Noriaki Kinoshita

Now don’t call me crazy just yet. Let’s look at the impact of Japanese players in American pro-sports. Ichiro recently signed on for $100 million dollars, a contract that people like Marlins president Dave Samson said would ruin the sport and take us back to an era of Kevin Brown/Albert Belle fiscal ridiculousness. Sure he’s a mid-30’s singles hitter who hasn’t led his team to anything but the Mariners have swung their margins by over $100 million since his arrival (forbes.com). His impact (economically) on both the franchise and the city cannot be overlooked (as it has been in the media). Do the Mariners put a team on the field that should draw over 3 million a year? Not a chance. People aren’t paying to see Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre strike out with runners on base or Jeff Weavers blond locks; they pay to see Ichiro (and buy his merch). Throw in the fact that he is a hit machine and he still gets it done in the outfield and his crazy contract doesn’t look so bad after all. It changes from How can the M’s afford to pay him that? to How can the M’s afford Not to pay him that? Come to think of it, the hotels in Seattle should be paying half his salary just from the impact of Japanese tourists!

So we’ve seen what Ichiro did for Seattle, but you may remember an under-the-radar story from 2004 in the NBA. Yuta Tabuse played in 4 games for the Phoenix Suns (he was later cut to make room for superstar Jake Vroman) and set off a media frenzy in the Land of the Rising Sun immediately. How does this affect the Falcons strategy? Jerseys. Tabuse (does he just go by Yuta?) had almost as many different jerseys available for sale (3) as games played. He stood 5’9” and 165 lbs. and his highlight was his 7 point, 10 minute spurt at the end of a blowout against the (who else?) Hawks. His jersey was selling out all over and foreign media credentials soon followed. In fact he even drew (Yi, take note) a media and fan following when he played for Asian mecca Albuquerque in the D-League. Then-coach Michael Cooper called it a ‘cult-like’ following. I have to believe that the Suns knew exactly what they were doing. What other 4th string diminutive PG has a Road-Sunday-Alternate-Jersey available?

SO. My plan for the Falcons? Run Norwood and start pimping Noriaki-Fever! Let him return half the kicks or put him in 4 receiver sets just as a decoy. Don’t you think if you create a media storm around him that these ego-maniac coaches will start to scheme against him? Certainly! They don’t want to be upstaged by the NFL’s version of Yuta. Sure it’s shameless - Yeah he probably can’t play in the NFL - but we gotta make up that revenue somehow and more importantly we gotta take some of the attention away from Vickgate 2007. Plus if the Japanese media take all the credentials then Roger Cossack/Shelley Smith/Pedro Gomez can’t get in there and ruin everyone’s Sunday afternoon. So Arthur! Cut those ticket/parking/beer prices again and give us some Kinoshita baby! At least we can sell out a few games and maybe save Delta and some hotels a lot of headaches. What else are we gonna do this year?