Earlier today, a sports-media brand unveiled a series of advertisements mocking a local sports team on the shuttle trains between Grand Central and Times Square in New York City. Internet users spread the brand’s messaging, seemingly aimed at positioning the brand as edgy and in your face for saying that the local sports team is bad, as is its owner.
This advertisement reportedly did not please the team, particularly its owner (who is bad), who is said to have made a phone call to an executive for the media brand to talk about his feelings. Those feelings were apparently strong enough to get the media brand to pull the ads and to issue an apology for their tone, which they claim to regret.
Given that the media brand got quite the reaction to all this—including a write-up in the New York Times—the sincerity of its regret seems at least slightly questionable.
[New York Post - New York Daily News - USA Today - SB Nation - Awful Announcing - Bleacher Report - Newsday - Sporting News]