At 8:35 am Central Time on Friday, October 2, PC Gamer audience development manager Cameron Bald shared a Twitter post by fan account GTA 6 Countdown. Miami’s NBA basketball team, the Heat, is doing a cross-promotion event with Rockstar, “A Night in Vice City.” The team will temporarily rebrand, though from what I can tell it’s as “Vice City” and not “The Vice City Heat,” which feels weird but what do I know.
None of us were particularly enthused by the branding exercise, but noted negative nelly and Glasgow-based PCG online editor, Fraser Brown, took particular umbrage, wondering “Who the hell doesn’t know GTA is coming?” Cameron offered a fairly compelling rebuttal: “The super-casual types who are still on a PS4 and need convincing that GTA 6 is worth getting back into games over.” Lead SEO editor Lauren Morton likened it to a chocolate bar at the checkout counter: This isn’t an exercise in persuasion, but flooding the zone.
No one in human history has known ball less.
Fraser was not persuaded, doubting the efficacy of the campaign. We got our first indication that something was amiss at 8:54 am. “A basketball stunt is so much more niche than, say, the Netflix trailer,” Fraser argued. Niche? The Miami Heat? The multi-billion dollar NBA franchise with three championship victories to its name? The one that signed LeBron for a while in the 2010s and made everybody mad (I don’t really know ball either)? That Miami Heat?
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Then, the whammy: “I guess it’s gonna land differently with Americans. To me, this is insanely niche. I had to google Miami Heat.“
Brits Who Don’t Know Ball Count: 1
More step forward
I was just logging on to work myself at this time, and was floored at what had transpired. I let Fraser know that this was the most British thing he had ever said. PC Gaming Show editorial director Jake Tucker tried to liken it to the international popularity of British football clubs, which did not help, because Fraser also does not follow footy. Lauren pointed out that Fraser was effectively saying, “I don’t see the marketing value of sports because I don’t follow sports.” Fraser dug in.
“I get using sports teams for marketing, but it feels niche when it’s one local sports team in one country. But maybe Miami Heat is an extremely big deal all over the world. I would never know!”
I pointed out how I’ve seen guys in Russia wearing Chicago Bulls jerseys, to which Fraser responded that he was aware of the Bulls and has even owned merch. If there is one takeaway from this whole debacle, it is not the manifest weakening of America’s global cultural hegemony. It is instead the continued dominance and recognition of America’s finest city, the Windy City. The City of Big Shoulders. Chi-Town, baby. Did you know we have a pope?
“I have heard of the Miami Dolphins,” Fraser remarked, perhaps as some manner of conciliatory gesture to his American colleagues, “but only because they featured in Ace Ventura.”
Knows every major and minor participant in the October Revolution and their party affiliation. Does not know ball.
Then, the other shoe dropped: “[To be fair], I also don’t know what a Miami Heat is,” news writer Joshua Wolens, who lives in England, unhelpfully proffered. “But I generally assume I don’t know most of what’s happening in the modern world.”
Brits Who Don’t Know Ball Count: 2
It was around this juncture that Fraser agreed to be subject to a formal write-up on PC Gamer dot com. I am not bullying my coworker. Buffalo-based PCG news writer Lincoln Carpenter helpfully reframed the argument at this time as well: “It’s not so much that the Miami Heat specifically is a big deal. It’s that NBA teams, as a rule, are big deals.” Lincoln also shared Forbes’ estimated valuations of the most expensive NBA teams in the world vs. the most expensive football clubs. For what it’s worth, the basketball teams are more expensive.
At 9:06 am, UK-based social video editor Paul Broughton introduced the new argument that “basketballs are a myth created by 2K to sell their annual videogame,” but I think it would be dishonest of me to add him to the counter. The work chat conversation then moved in different directions, but I was haunted.
Dateline: Lunch
I took my lunch break to play some of the Dark Souls 2 Seamless Co-op mod with PCG senior guides writer Sean Martin and freelance contributor Tyler Colp. I remarked on the Fraser/Miami Heat situation, and how I couldn’t get it out of my head.
“What is the Miami Heat?“ Sean sheepishly asked. Sean is also English.
Brits Who Don’t Know Ball Count: 3
Sean Martin
One of the first people in the world to figure out the Ranni Quest in Elden Ring. Did not know what The Miami Heat is.
At almost the exact same time, former PC Gamer editor-in-chief Samuel Roberts, who has returned for some freelance work and is also an Englishman, entered the chat. I thought he was a man of the world. I thought surely he would know ball.
“I learned what they are two hours ago!” Sam informed us. “I’m aware of the Miami Dolphins.” Unlike Fraser, Sam did not come by this knowledge through the works of Jim Carrey, but rather some kind of hazy osmosis through American podcasts. Sam did know about the Bulls though (Chicago baby da Bulls baby etc.)
Brits Who Don’t Know Ball Count: 4
Can cohost a mean podcast, but never realized that ball is life.
Then things took a turn for the strange. Senior editor Christopher Livingston, who has lived in the United States his entire life (and also Orlando, Florida for five years), revealed that he also probably couldn’t have placed the Heat prior to this morning’s events. Man, what the fuck.
Americans Who Don’t Know Ball Count: 1
I can’t stress enough that I’m not a basketball guy. I don’t know why this lack of Miami Heat brand recognition is bothering me so much. Is this how my UK colleagues feel when I don’t know what a chip sandwich, Mr. Blobby, or a bank holiday is? I feel like I’m being pranked.