The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Take me out to the bucksgame
: I find all the whining about the Spiderman promotion on baseball diamonds disingenuous as hell: “MLB proves it’s only interested in almighty dollar,” says the whining headline over another mewling column.
Well, of course it’s about the almighty dollar, fool. It’s a business. It’s a big business. Aren’t we over being shocked that (1) jocks are dumb, (b) jocks take drugs, (c) jocks are greedy, (d) owners are greedy? If not, get over it.
Yeah, like there is any “purity” left in baseball. Unless Yankee stadium removes all the advertising that already cover every exposed facade, no one can complain that ads on bases radically alters anything.
But I did especially like one of the comments made by a MLB official: trying to persuade people that it won’t interfere with the visual aspect of the game, he said the logos would only be visible from the upper-decks or from an overhead camera shot. What, then, is the point? Why would Sony dish out money so a tiny logo can barely be seen from a blimp 300 feet above the stadium?
Here’s the genius of such a plan: Sony PR execs sign this deal with MLB, knowing it won’t fly. In the meantime, they get all kinds of press coverage and the Spiderman logo gets shown on all the news outlets – FOR FREE.
How were we supposed to see the top of the bases anyway? Advertising has always been used in baseball…
“in baseball’s early days the bull pen was usually located in left field and standard equipment in ball parks of the period was a large billboard on the left field fence advertising Bull Durham tobacco.”
if advertising can influence the basic terminology of the game I don’t see the reason for banning promotions.
Bob Costas disagrees because ……. he is Bob Costas, and no other reasons.
I don’t think the reaction would have been quite so intense if it were another sport. Baseball fans generally understand and accept that baseball is a business, but a lot of them aren’t thrilled about it, and there are limits to the degree of selling out that many of them are willing to tolerate. It’s the whole “Field of Dreams” thing. To some of its fans, baseball is more than a sport, it’s almost a secular religion. Also, tradition is a much bigger part of baseball than it is with other sports, at least here in the USA.
I don’t know, Jim. Imagine if Ford wanted to paint their logo on the 18th green at Doral.
Why should I “get over” something I don’t like? Seems pretty normal for consumers of a product to complain when the product is (to their eyes) devalued. Should you “get over” dumb newspaper columns about weblogs, or the prevailing biases of the BBC? Aren’t you “over being shocked” that some columinsts are mediocre, and some news organizations have slants?
You might want to edit your list, Jeff, it reads “1) jocks are dumb, b) jocks take drugs. . .” :)
The reason why we don’t “get over it” is because there are some values that don’t have a dollar sign attached to it. A certain amount of advertising is expected, but not on the field itself. That’s the line for some of us, and we used our hardfought freedom of expression to raise hell about it. That you object to that shows you may know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.
To quote Oscar Wilde.
you know what? I agree with what you’re saying, and I surely know that before it’s all over every single inch of the ballfield and the players and equipment will probably be plastered with ads, but DAMMIT, let it happen down the road, on someone elses watch. Let somebody else’s kid grow up knowing nothing but the Geico logo on the bases and Budweiser symbol on the baseball. The longer we can delay the inevtiable, the better I like it.
“To some of its fans, baseball is more than a sport, it’s almost a secular religion”
DAMN RIGHT! In New York, you’re religion or political affiliation isn’t half as important as what baseball team you root for.
The ironic thing is it was the Yankees — the team (along with Tampa Bay) that had the Ricoah logos on their uniforms in the Tokyo season openers and who removed the out-of-town scoreboard in the outfield this season to squeeze in more ads — who balked first at putting the Spider-Man ads on the bases during the games. Selig’s office reversed itself the next day.
Of course, the other thing to point out here is the logo was to be put on the bases the weekend of June 11-13. That also happens to be Interleague weekend No. 1, and you really can’t get too worked up about the bases being desicrated by web lines when the Yanks are facing their longtime and bitter rivals the San Diego Padres in the House that Ruth Built over those three days.
Boss George: Defender of baseball’s virtue.
This goes into my fave marketing territory, ‘brands are relationships’
And MLB is totally abusing it… they may get some Spiderman money now but their franchise is fuelled by the goodwill of their fans, which, though substantial, is not infinite.
Baseballs’s wealth comes from fans’ warm, fuzzy, nostalgic feelings, most of which are pretty irrational. Anything that pierces this thin membrane devalues the franchise.
Any half-decent blogger will understand the “fuelled by goodwill” concept. People only link to your site if they like you.
“Fuelled by goodwill”. Welcome to the future of marketing. Heh.
I don’t really care about this particular incident with baseball, but it makes me think of the future, and a world described in many SF books, where advertising becomes an all out assault on our senses in (almost) all places and at all times. Neal Stephenson describes some scenarios in “Snow Crash” and “The Diamond Age” that don’t sound very pleasant. When it gets to the point that the very sky itself is filled with lighted ads, and you can’t escape audible ads, are we just supposed to get over it?
Ya know, that whole “hero” label applied to athletes kills me, and the idea that they are somehow “better” people and should be role models is just ludicrous.
There are about 100,000 real heroes in Iraq right now, with real stakes. Firefighters can be heroes. All that stuff. But a person who can punt, pass, kick, hit a ball or shoot the basketball with great precision is not a hero. He or she is just a trained professional — no different than a doctor or accountant.
When sport teams were products of their regions, there was soul and passion behind the teams. Now, when I watch the Braves or any other team, I think: they’re just putting in a day’s work. It’s just a job, and it’s a business, and it’s really not worth much anymore. Hell, most the teams lose money anyway…
Scott: if homeowners’ associations won’t even let people deviate from the strict list of Approved Colors to paint their own homes, there is hope that rampant advertisement on every available surface won’t come to pass. Then again, I live in Florida, land of the free-association style of zoning (we have police stations situated most conveniently next to titty bars), so what do I know.
PS: I wouldn’t bank too much on the pronouncements of scifi novels. Many of the ones written in the fifties promised that individual jet packs and interstellar space travel would be widely available by the 1980s. So why am I still taking the bus?
Yes, it is natural for advertisers to want to find new ways of making sure your eyeballs are drawn to their message. Are you saying we must ‘get over’ spam, throw away our pop-up blockers, and settle down to enjoy the dinner-time telemarketing call?
You see, it is ALSO natural for people to resent each new invasion of advertisement. This situation qualifies as a ‘new’ level of invasion since as another reader pointed out, although sidewall billboards are common, in general the playing field itself has been sacrosanct. No ‘tide’ logos painted onto the bats, no ‘AOL’ in bold letters on the batter’s ass, no painting left outfield with the Viagra logo (complete with legal disclaimers in small print). Similar unwritten rules also dominate other sports, with NASCAR being the visible although understandable exception.
It is legitimate for people to make their displeasure with a change in a product or service (like ‘baseball’) that they are paying for known. Had the backlash succeeded in convincing said owner to yank the ad-plates, that would have been an entirely legitimate case of customer feedback.
If many baseball consumers feel that a particular ad devalues the game, then they are right BY DEFINITION, since ‘value’ is defined in no small part by how the consumer feels about a product. Econ 101, anyone?
Since they are right about the devaluing, then they automatically have a legitimate grievence. A grievence that won’t go away simply because you decide to have a condescending attitude.