MLB Marketing (add it to the game-ruining list)

YTF

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Awesome Fossum

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Oh, I see. It definitely looks like they're emphasizing AMER and AL. But yeah, I can't get worked up over a random t-shirt. I save that for important things like baseball uniforms.
 

Archer1979

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MLB's approach to holiday games continues to baffle me. Most of the country had the day off yesterday but not a day game to be seen.
 

nattysez

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This emphasis is on the underlined. Nation and I Can. Or did I miss faux outrage due to a broken sarcasm meter. The past four years have sort of dulled that sense.
I'm not really outraged, just amazed that a multi-billion-dollar company making uniforms for another multi-billion-dollar company can't avoid a Don't Dead Open Inside situation. And what is a bunch of guys from a wide variety of countries wearing a shirt that emphasizes the word "Nation" meant to convey, exactly?
 

YTF

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I'm not really outraged, just amazed that a multi-billion-dollar company making uniforms for another multi-billion-dollar company can't avoid a Don't Dead Open Inside situation. And what is a bunch of guys from a wide variety of countries wearing a shirt that emphasizes the word "Nation" meant to convey, exactly?
Unity...we're all one. What better group is there? I get and appreciate the sentiment, but I personally some of this is wearing me out a bit. Everything lately seems to have to be a message.
 

Comfortably Lomb

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I have no idea what the heck is going on at Nike. For a long time they generally had some of the cleanest looking, stylish, premium looking products. Then it's like Under Armor and Adidas got with the program and Nike panicked and hired some weird design folks. Now Nike makes clothing that desperately tries to be cool but really looks like a clown vomited on it.
 

simplicio

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That's definitely the hat I want to wear when rooting for my favorite baseball team, the Philadelphia Philpies
 

Sad Sam Jones

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New Era was trying to sell me this in my FB news feed for $40, and I'm… just… why? I'm pretty sure they screwed up an order of hats and decided to just sell them.

KC upsidedown.png
 

Awesome Fossum

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I saw someone yesterday wearing a hat with an upside down LA. Didn't occur to me it was MLB sanctioned. It reminds me of DeShawn Stevenson, who tattooed the Pirate's P on his face backwards so that it would look right to him in the mirror.
 

Rovin Romine

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Rovin Romine

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Another data point in the player over team/franchise marketing shift.

Current top article on the MLB site:

11 stars who need that first ring
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-players-in-need-of-first-championship-ring

I sort of remember WS aspirations being couched in "will this be the year for the long suffering fans of Cleveland?" language or perhaps referring to a collection of young talent on a poised club. But here's a survey of individual players who need "rings" to burnish their individual resumes, with just the right whiff of entitlement.

And man, do I ever not care that: 6. Giancarlo Stanton, OF/DH, Yankees (age 31), does not have "his ring" yet.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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Yeah, but if they focused on teams, then people (maybe not you, but maybe you?) would complain about how much they talked about the big-market/“crown jewel” teams from NY, LA, Chicago, etc. Are you saying you’d prefer the old ESPN approach*?

(* - it is possible this is still ESPN’s approach.)
 

YTF

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Another data point in the player over team/franchise marketing shift.

Current top article on the MLB site:

11 stars who need that first ring
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-players-in-need-of-first-championship-ring

I sort of remember WS aspirations being couched in "will this be the year for the long suffering fans of Cleveland?" language or perhaps referring to a collection of young talent on a poised club. But here's a survey of individual players who need "rings" to burnish their individual resumes, with just the right whiff of entitlement.

And man, do I ever not care that: 6. Giancarlo Stanton, OF/DH, Yankees (age 31), does not have "his ring" yet.
Votto's second on the list. In today's game, would 2,400 hits and 400 HR get Joey Votto into the Hall? At 37 years old he's roughly 400 from the former and 80 from the latter. I'm not sure a ring helps the case.
 

Comfortably Lomb

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And man, do I ever not care that: 6. Giancarlo Stanton, OF/DH, Yankees (age 31), does not have "his ring" yet.
It's a bit weird because winning the World Series isn't a career validator like it is for stars in the NBA or for QBs.

He's also a tremendously boring player and hasn't been close to the player he was years ago in Miami. Does anyone actually care about Stanton at this point?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Is this a good place to complain about the MLB Ap, which is part of the obnoxiously expensive TV package I paid for, feeding me an ad in order to listen to the audio feed? The broadcast has ads and I paid for this, why can’t I just turn on the game to catch up, why should I have to also listen to an ad in order to fire up the audio feed?
 

PC Drunken Friar

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Is there some hip fashion thing that I'm too old to know about or understand that makes this drip thing "cool" or relevant? Or are they simply throwing shit at the wall and seeing what drips on to their marketing proposals?
Not sure if it's the connection, but drip is slang for owning your fashion and having a lot of style.
 

voidfunkt

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Is there some hip fashion thing that I'm too old to know about or understand that makes this drip thing "cool" or relevant? Or are they simply throwing shit at the wall and seeing what drips on to their marketing proposals?
Outside of the scope of Sports stuff I think the "busy" or "stylized" designs we are starting to see are popular among the Gen Z and younger crowds as a reaction to the sterile clean corporate look Apple and Friends have oppressed us with for the last fifteen years.

I kind of expect the trend over the next 10-15 years will be flashy/gaudy (ugly) designs win over clean designs in a lot of contexts.
 

PseuFighter

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Has anyone mentioned the absurdity of running the HoF induction ceremony on a random Wednesday afternoon in September?
 

Kliq

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Baseball hats and styles have a reach far, far beyond the the scope of just baseball fans. Looking at the hats and pearl clutching about the ruination of the game is a bad look.
 

Awesome Fossum

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Can you expand on that? I think it's one thing to accuse people of bad looks and pearl-clutching when this stuff is at least ostensibly being done in the name of marketing to young people/new audiences. But if it's just being done in service of fashionistas and other people far, far beyond the scope of baseball fans, then I'm a little confused why that's relevant. If the purpose of these hats isn't to serve baseball fans or help create new baseball fans, then it just feel like compromising brand integrity for the sake of making a few bucks.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Can you expand on that? I think it's one thing to accuse people of bad looks and pearl-clutching when this stuff is at least ostensibly being done in the name of marketing to young people/new audiences. But if it's just being done in service of fashionistas and other people far, far beyond the scope of baseball fans, then I'm a little confused why that's relevant. If the purpose of these hats isn't to serve baseball fans or help create new baseball fans, then it just feel like compromising brand integrity for the sake of making a few bucks.
Since the late 90s baseball hats mean more than just repping the team you like. For many people wearing a Yankee hat is a fashion statement. I’d bet that most people wearing the interlocking NY void he name one Yankee.

For many foreign people, it’s a wearable symbol of the US. It’s the United States and it represents the country. Not only that but since the 90s, there are a million different colors of Yankee hats made popular by hip hop artists and other pop culture icons. Again, these people are repping the city mor than they are the team.

MLB has extrapolated that for their other franchises. Maybe Ice Cube doesn’t know Sandy Koufax but he reps a black Dodgers cap (he probably does know Koufax but it’s just an example of an aging Gen Xer but you get my gist).

The point is MLB doesn’t care whether someone buys a $50 ball cap is a die hard, pink hat (pun intended) or someone who just loves Ma$e. It’s $50 in their pocket with the outside shot that maybe these people want to know more about what’s on their head and become fans. Maybe not. But they still have their cash. Which is the whole point of merchandising.

If MLB only sold to die hards, they’d be in deep shit. So that’s why they have all of these “weird” caps and shirts. They’re not for us. We already have an office Sox hat and jersey and a bunch of other crap. Our journeys are pretty much done. Not so the casual or nonfan.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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What exactly do you consider "deep shit"?

Perhaps you mean "Wouldn't make quite as much money" – which, while less desirable to them (and perhaps "deep shit" for the advertising people they fire, but for MLB as a whole) is a far cry from "deep shit."
They would be in deep shit, because if they only sold things to people who care about the game, their base wouldn't grow. A base that doesn't grow tends to die. Will it die tomorrow? No. But it will. And much sooner if that base doesn't get expanded.

And also, baseball is a business, and business people tend to like it when everyone buys their stuff. It makes them more money.
 

Heating up in the bullpen

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They would be in deep shit, because if they only sold things to people who care about the game, their base wouldn't grow. A base that doesn't grow tends to die. Will it die tomorrow? No. But it will. And much sooner if that base doesn't get expanded.

And also, baseball is a business, and business people tend to like it when everyone buys their stuff. It makes them more money.
Is this a chicken and egg thing? Does your base grow because of your merchandise, or do you sell more merchandise because your base is growing? Probably need to start by defining "base." I would define it as fans of the game -- the people who watch games on tv, go to games live, listen to games on the radio. JMOH, you have already noted that many people who wear a hat aren't fans, that is, aren't part of the base. Like most things in life, I expect the answer is complex. Some non-fans may become fans because of merchandise. Certainly fans (the base) will buy more of your merchandise than non-fans, but the population of non-fans is much larger than fans, so a small percentage of that pie can be a significant percentage of MLB's merchandising income.
But I think the sport is more likely to add to its base through youth initiatives and the minor leagues than through merchandise (though merch is also a component of those areas).
 

jayhoz

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If space aliens who have never watched a single inning of baseball want to infuse cash into my favorite sport by buying ugly alien themed merch, why would I care?

 

kenneycb

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Is this a chicken and egg thing? Does your base grow because of your merchandise, or do you sell more merchandise because your base is growing? Probably need to start by defining "base." I would define it as fans of the game -- the people who watch games on tv, go to games live, listen to games on the radio. JMOH, you have already noted that many people who wear a hat aren't fans, that is, aren't part of the base. Like most things in life, I expect the answer is complex. Some non-fans may become fans because of merchandise. Certainly fans (the base) will buy more of your merchandise than non-fans, but the population of non-fans is much larger than fans, so a small percentage of that pie can be a significant percentage of MLB's merchandising income.
But I think the sport is more likely to add to its base through youth initiatives and the minor leagues than through merchandise (though merch is also a component of those areas).
It’s not an either / or thing. Those things can happen simultaneously.