MLB Marketing vs. The Herd

"I suck."

THANK YOU Bartolo Colon for dropping a -10.67 yesterday in a short week.  That will be SO helpful to me.  Fucking asshole.


I was listening to "The Herd" earlier (Lord knows why) and he was talking about how baseball "doesn't market their players" and how they have to "get with technology."  All of this led to his conclusion that baseball is a poorly run sport and is losing popularity because of bad leadership in the commissioner's office.  I agree with his end conclusion, but some of his points leading up to it were thin at best.

I suppose this was all brought about because Colin Cowherd attaches value of all things to TV ratings.  It is his end all, be all measuring stick of popularity.  He can't comprehend that keeping track of games via the internet or getting updates on someone's cell phone could detract from the TV ratings, but not affect the overall popularity.  But like I said, his end point is correct- baseball is losing popularity and needs to do something to win fans back.  First, let's look at the other points of his that I mentioned above.

"MLB doesn't market their players/stars."  Ok. 



That was Felix Hernandez in his own commercial. Yes, the same King Felix that won the Cy Young with a 13-12 record last year. How about this one?



Ubaldo Jimenez got his own commercial about how confusing his name is. He had a great first half last year, then faded and did not win the Cy Young award in the NL, yet he gets his own "Epic" commercial. Not enough?



You just went on a journey inside Brian Wilson's epic beard. In fact, I'd wager that Brian Wilson inspired the "Always Epic" ad campaign. My point is not that these commercials are great, my point is that baseball went out of its way to create commercials for Felix Hernandez, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Brian Wilson. Does this not show effort on MLB's part to market their players? Are they attempting to create stars? Brian Wilson may be better at marketing himself than MLB is (as evidence by Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight last night) but that doesn't mean that MLB is not aware that they need to create stars from their sport.

"MLB needs to get with technology." What the fuck, Cowherd? Get with technology? Are you serious? Between MLB Network, MLB.TV and MLB At-Bat, I believe MLB has the most accessible technology on the market for major sports. NFL Network is great and Red Zone is also great. However, The Sunday Ticket is limited to DirectTV so if you don't have that brand of cable (I do not) you are fucked. Also, I pay $100 every year to get almost EVERY SINGLE baseball game on my computer. The value there is staggering. The NFL product is great, but MLB is definitely technologically savvy and brings great value to the table. I'm pretty sure "getting with technology" is not their problem.

What is the problem? I honestly don't know for sure. For my part, I still love baseball. I watch a lot of it. The Cubs and my fantasy team sure aren't helping this year, but I can loosely follow the Giants and the rest of the league and enjoy the year. Baseball brings a consistent product to the table each and every day during the season. I love knowing there are games going on and even if I go work out or find something else to do besides watch TV, I'm always checking on scores from my phone because I care about baseball.

I agree, the sport could use some younger, more up-and-coming stars, and let's keep it real, Derek Jeter should have at least appeared at the All-Star game, but overall, I still very much enjoy the game. Now, if the commissioner's office could get out of their own way, maybe baseball could be brought to another level, but that could be wishful thinking.

Brian Wilson - Yay Or Nay?

So, uh, that happened.

Brian Wilson.  The Weez.  B-Weezy.  The guy who invented Charlie Sheen's current way of speaking.  This All-Star closer and World Fucking Champion gets weirder and weirder by the moment.  I'm always on the fence as to whether or not Brian Wilson is serious inside about his actions being cool, or if he is constantly trying to be funny.  At this point, given his reputation, he could probably say just about anything and get away with it.

For example, in the pre-interviews with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver before the All-Star game, he told them that when he was younger he worked as a gravestone shifter.  Riiight.  He reset gravestones that had shifted over time.  I'm going to need a bit of proof before I believe the most sarcastic man in baseball.  Apparently, Tim McCarver thought to himself, "This seems like an honest gentleman- I totally believe that story!" because he mentioned it during the broadcast when Wilson was brought in the game in the 9th inning. 

"Rest... In... Peace..."

Or how about on "Lopez Tonight" when The Weez dressed up like the captain of a ship?  Didn't see it?  Well, here's a pic:

Cue George Lopez's horrible and out of place Sponge Bob jokes.

So what do we think?  Is this act getting tired?  Have we been inundated with enough Brian Wilson or are his shenanigans still funny?  I'm still a "fan" of the "Brian Wilson Should Host SNL" Facebook fan page.  Would that be of high quality or the worst episode since the era right after Will Ferrell left?

I will say this, for me, it is losing steam.  True, I laughed at his spandex suit from the ESPYs last night.  However, his antics are getting a little stale.  Maybe "The Franchise" will change that.  Maybe it will make them even worse.  I think he may want to take a break or up the ante in some form or fashion.  I'd be interested to hear how the rest of the country views B-Weezy.

Then again, if he leads the Giants to another World Series title, he can pretty much do whatever he wants.  Maybe even another video like this:

Prime PSAs

Admit it.  You loved NBC's "The More You Know" commercials.  You probably also loved drug use PSAs, closing episode "...and knowing is half the battle!" G.I. Joe clips, and more than likely you love also snuff films.  This is the attempt to combine all of those glorious forms of media into a blog post.  The premise will more than likely be as thin as the front of LeBron's hairline.

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Boston Sports Fans: The next time you see a group of middle aged Caucasian guys looking like slobs and wearing any combination of Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins gear, just turn and find another way to get to your destination.    Having at least one championship from each of these team in the last decade has made Boston sports fans braggadocios douche bags.*

*And ugly as well- but I don't think that has anything to do with the championships.

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Brian Wilson's Beard: B-Weezy's beard is now officially out of control.  If you were to meet him, he would also have to introduce you to his beard because it is a separate entity.  It's only a matter of time before it takes over his brain and controls his every action.  It's either that, or it walks away, takes its talents to Souf Beach and closes for the Marlins.*

*Thanks Leo Nunez for blowing the win for Anibal "The Cannibal" last night.  You are a piece of shit and I bet the Weez's beard could've closed it out.  

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Anthony Weiner: Don't ever elect a politician with the last name Weiner.  Politicians don't have the most stellar reputation when it comes to sexual scandals- they fall just below the women in LeBron James' life and the 2005 Minnesota Vikings on the scale of promiscuity.  You pretty much have to know what you're getting when you elect someone named Weiner.*

*The Governator would like to send Weiner a thank you card and a gift basket full of lube and Barely Legal mags to terminating Arnold's name from the front page.

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Rolling In The Deep: Really cool song, but I now have to change the channel every time it comes on the radio to prevent the overexposure from taking over and making me hate that fucking Adele song.*  See?  It's already started!  Don't let it happen to you as well!

*It's unavoidable.  Radio will destroy cool songs that happen to appeal to the masses.  I can still barely listen to "Glycerine" by Bush.

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Ryan Reynolds: C'mon Ryan!  You're better than this.  This PSA is directly addressing your shitty movie choices lately.  With "Green Lantern" getting torn apart by even geeky movie reviewers, there is zero chance I'm going to see it.  Get your shit together and make the "Dead Pool" movie* that comic nerds deserve.  It's either that, or another Van Wilder- your choice mofo.

*A mouthy mercenary?  Seems right up Reynolds' alley.  And by alley, I mean poop shoot.

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