Don't count on hearing the irritating buzz of the vuvuzela at
upcoming Kansas City Wizards soccer matches, the club's PR guy, Rob Thomas,
tells us.
"As far as [American soccer] goes, I don't see it happening, thankfully," Thomas says.
Thomson points out that horns at soccer games are nothing new. But, like all fads, the vuvuzela's popularity (or infamy) is based on marketing.
"Everybody wants a vuvuzela from South Africa. I don't think people realize that they're just plastic horns. They think they're a magical instrument," Thomas says. "We've sold horns [at games] in the past. The only difference is that they paint them over there and put beads on them. Maybe we needed a better name. Maybe if we had called them vuvuzelas."
On a league level, Thomson says, there were some promotional ideas kicked around as the World Cup was starting, and vuvuzelas were getting good publicity. But the press soon turned sour, and the ideas fizzled.
Still, that's not stopping swag merchants from trying to capitalize off the instruments. Thomson says 15 companies have contacted him pushing vuvuzelas.
"In the last four years I didn't want them," he says. "Just because you're calling them vuvuzelas doesn't mean we're going to want them now."
Photo by Magnus Manske.
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