Jumping Through Hoops to Seed Clusters
The Charlotte basketball team recently changed their name from the Bobcats to the Hornets. The name change comes as part of an attempted resurge in the popularity of the team, playing off a nostalgic name chosen after a poll of Charlotte residents ranked it as their favorite. It seems to be working, with merchandise sales up 77 percent, season ticket sales second in the NBA, and 30 more corporate sponsors. Sports teams are always looking to gets fans in the seats, whether by giving away tickets, holding free nights for certain groups, or selling cheap concessions. The Hornets had a more unique idea: representatives cruised around area neighborhoods looking for houses with basketball nets in the driveway. When they found one, a costumed mascot jumped out and knocked on the door, handing the family members a purple-colored basketball net. The family could then replace their current net with the team-colored one and post the picture on social media sites for a chance to win free tickets.
This odd form of advertisement is related to the concept of clusters and spreading new things through networks. In-class, there were two competing objects, A and B. Each network node had to choose either A or B to support, receiving a payoff based on all of its surrounding nodes. There were clusters that were too inter-connected relative to their outer connections to ever switch. Here, A and B are going to games and not going to games. It can be assumed that people do not usually go to sporting events alone, and the more people you share being fans with the more fun it is for all of you. Thus, each person has to choose whether to go to the game or not, and their enjoyment as such is based on how many of their friends make the same decision. Neighborhoods and friend groups form clusters of interconnectivity. One of the easiest ways to “open up” clusters to change to a selected choice is by “seeding”, or forcing certain nodes to change so as to make it rational for their friends to change. The net giveaway is a form of seeding: the team gives a basketball fan a memento to encourage them to come to the game. Their neighbors see the net, potentially making them switch. Finally, sharing the net on social media spreads the change to a cluster of friends, meaning even more exposure.