#Fandangoing [Fahn-Dahn-Goh-Eeeng] {verb} – to dance to the music of WWE Superstar Fandango.

Earlier this week, I wrote about how the crowd at WWE Monday Night Raw went off-script by voraciously cheering bad guy Dolph Ziggler as he nefariously won the World Heavyweight Championship.

In addition to treating Ziggler’s win like a major star-making moment, the crowd took new character Fandango, a dancer, to a new level. During his match with Kofi Kingston, the crowd…well…Fandangoed:

After the show, WWE leading man John Cena kept the Fandango movement alive, thanking the crowd for their energy and passion:

Fans in the UK, excited by the craze, began downloading the theme song in large numbers – it even hit #11 on the iTunes chart. People are not just enjoying it, they are investing in it.

And now, prospective cheerleaders for the Houston Texans released a video of them #Fandangoing:

Will the craze continue? Will it be a short-term wonder? Is ChaChaLaLa the new Harlem Shake?

Of course, time will tell…we just have to sing along and experience the #FandangoRevolution.

There has been a lot of conversation in the sports world this week about fans.

One Miami Heat fan displayed on a sign his strong displeasure that Heat star LeBron James was a healthy scratch against the Wizards on Wednesday night, after he had spent over $1,000 to get to the game in DC.

Professional sports leagues have a tricky balancing act.

First and foremost, they are businesses designed to make money. That’s the league, the teams, and, to some level, even the players.

However, they must also present a credible level of competition to legitimize their games.

The Heat/Wizards issue is this: fans paid full price tickets and got a discount-level Miami squad.

Boxing promoters are famous for the line “card subject to change” included on all advertising surrounding their shows, since injuries, contract issues and even drug suspensions can alter the bouts.

Washington Post columnist Mike Wise wrote this week that the Heat earned the right to rest their stars to get them prepared for the playoffs.

And this is the fuzzy intersection of business and competition.

There are 82 regular season games on the schedule. Fans buy a seat at the game – there are no guarantees in advance of who will be playing for each team or that the team they are rooting for will win, or even play well. You buy a ticket for the game experience.

From a competition aspect, you play to win games, but the games you want to win are the championship games, not regular season games, especially after you have clinched a postseason berth.

However, when players sit out games to rest, you risk losing the business from your fans, who may decide to spend money on a nice dinner or another sport or the movies instead of paying for a ticket to see your scrubs.

Miami, from a competitive standpoint, only cares about winning a championship. Nothing else matters.

In theory, the business side could suffer from a star player not playing in some games here and there. But the impact is most likely negligible. In fact, winning a championship would erase all of the potential bad vibes, making it worth the risk.

Other great moments from fans this week:

WWE Monday Night Raw crowd (as previously discussed here)

This Seattle Mariners fan caught a foul ball in his BEER CUP! And then chugged the beer to get the ball out!

In marketing and communications, the goal is to guide the thoughts and feelings of the public, right?

Dolph Ziggler: Anti-hero for the ages?

You want people to view your brand or product in a certain (positive) light.

It’s almost a Pavlovian formula: See X logo and feel Y emotion.

Consume product A and feel emotion B.

The truth is that customers guide the experience of the brand just as much as the marketing messages do.

McDonald’s launched a social media campaign in January 2012 with the hashtag #McDStories. The aim was for customers to share positive stories about their visits to the fast-food giant…but it quickly became a dumping ground for nightmares and horror stories.

New Coke. Another failure. Coca-Cola updated their classic recipe in 1985 after extensive taste-testing. The backlash was so extensive, the original recipe was back on shelves within three months. While some say the flop actually revitalized the brand, New Coke remains a marketing punchline.

World Wrestling Entertainment, a company I discuss in this space often, is not immune from the perils of things going against the grain. And sometimes, they embrace it and create a magic moment.

A great example came this week on Monday Night Raw.

World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio, a good guy, has struggled to connect with the audience. Something about his presentation just isn’t clicking.

Noted bad guy Dolph Ziggler earned a contract that allowed him an automatic title match against the World Heavyweight Champion.

Del Rio, in the story, sustained an ankle injury in his match Monday against bad guy Jack Swagger.

As Del Rio writhed in pain, unable to walk or stand, Ziggler’s music played and he made his way down to the ring to cash in his contract.

Villain preys on wounded hero. Simple story.

But Ziggler was wildly cheered by the crowd who respected his talents, and were bored with Del Rio, who struggled to connect with the audience as the cheered warrior.

And when I say wildly cheered, it’s a true understatement. The crowd was molten for him, despite his evil ways.

Despite taking advantage of a hurt opponent (a decidedly villainous tactic), Ziggler’s pinfall victory for the title almost literally blew the roof off the arena.

Ziggler got his moment to shine on national TV – winning the World Heavyweight Championship, soaking in the accolades that villains rarely experience.

The audience on Monday night decided that while Ziggler may be a villain, he was going to be the villain they loved to cheer for.

It’s unlikely that Ziggler will be a hero anytime soon. An anti-hero? Perhaps. But definitely not a “say your prayers, take your vitamins” hero.

The customer was right and the moment was fantastic.

A guy I know correctly refers to his smartphone as “the sum total of all human knowledge.” 

Think about it – within seconds you can, in theory, call anyone in the world, send anyone a note, look up any fact of anything ever, play games, listen to any recorded song, record yourself, watch virtually any piece of video content ever created or…just about anything else.

So, we are attached to our smartphones.

As Don Henley sang, “But there’s a danger in loving somebody too much.”

Among the world’s top 19 most digital markets, 72% of people will have a smartphone by 2015. And the number of active smartphones in the world will hit 1.4 BILLION this year.

62% of people (including me) grab their smartphone as soon as they wake up in the morning.

In quite large numbers, we also take our smartphones with us to the bathroom.

91% of Gen Y has done it. And nearly a quarter of all people DON’T go to the bathroom without their smartphone…ahem…handy. (I’m pleading the Fifth.)

One company has even made a bluetooth-enabled device to connect your phone to your shower.

Who would have predicted the smartphone would become a toilet device? If you’re brave…do you bring your device into the loo?

With all of this being said, kudos to Saturday Night Live for poking fun at those who…multi-task…in a pitch-perfect sketch starring Keenan Thompson:

Information is power.

Crowdsourcing democratizes information.

So what happens when crowdsourced information collides with an angry crowd?

This:

Carlos Marmol, a struggling pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. had salt rubbed in his wounds shortly after losing his high-profile job in the bullpen as the team’s closer when his Wikipedia page referred to him as “arguably the worst pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball.”

The editorialized line was quickly removed, but not before it made headlines.

The facts say that while Marmol may not be a Hall of Famer, he is no scrub. He has 116 career saves, with an 81.6% conversion rate.

By comparison, Jim Johnson of the Orioles, who saved 51 games last year and is widely regarded as one of the top closers in baseball right now, has a career save percentage of 79.6%. And Tampa’s Fernando Rodney, another feared closer, boasts a 77.1% save rate.

So Marmol is clearly not the worst pitcher ever. Not even close.

But he is off to a bad start this year for one of the hallmark teams of Major League Baseball, so his struggles get compounded – and it manifested in Wikipedia.

Is this sort of high-profile pranking – Wiki-Terrorism – the wave of the future?

With a platform so open, there have likely been millions of errors, both unintentional and malevolent, over the years on Wikipedia. But the Marmol situation is garnering major attention.

Will we view this a as prank akin to drawing devil horns on a poster of someone you don’t like? Or will this eventually be classified as libel?

To me, there is a clear difference between (a) writing a blog post on your site calling Marmol the worst pitcher ever and (b) carjacking his Wikipedia page to reflect those opinions.

Also, if you’re a fan of the Cubs, you should WANT Marmol to find his groove and be successful for your team, right?

What’s your take? Was this a harmless prank or did it go too far?

Back in 2010, my friend Jason Mollica wrote here about why Major League Baseball’s Opening Day is awesome.

To me, it’s a fresh start, a renewal – where the past is just that and the future is about to be written.

What can we learn from Opening Day as marketers?

Beginnings Are Marketable.

Answer me this question: Do you start more books or finish more books?

Or this one: How many fitness plans have you begun…and then gave up on halfway through?

Getting people excited for an event is a big part of the marketer’s challenge.

Nearly every Major League Baseball team sells out on Opening Day.

Sustaining Interest Is Hard

There is a surefire way to sustain interest over the course of a long season: winning.

Looking at the 2012 year-to-year attendance gains, most of the teams with the greatest gains were winning teams. My favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles, had the sharpest uptick, as they unexpectedly just kept winning all season, despite nobody predicting it would happen.

The books you finished and the fitness plans and regimens you continue are the most successful – they kept your interest or led to clear results.

So while we are spending today considering the future, perhaps the best strategy for marketers may be a long-term one. Think about where you ultimately want to be – and while the launch of a campaign is a watershed moment, it’s not the only part of it.

Think about ways not just to get people excited for one trip, visit or event – but how to build loyalty that keeps them coming back multiple times.

And while you do that, I’ll be enjoying the start of the baseball season and hoping my Orioles keep the wins coming.