Wednesday, May 05, 2004
With Webs on Bases, Baseball Will Push "Spider-Man 2"
In a move that, with any luck, will cause Ralph Nader's head to explode, MLB and Sony Corp. have arranged a promotion for the opening weekend of Spider-Man 2 which provides for ads on the bases.
According to a report by Brian Steinberg and Stefan Fatsis in today's Wall Street Journal (no link yet, maybe later):
"Under a design nearing approval by MLB, the center of the top of first, second and third bases will be adorned with a 7.5-inch-square 'Spider-Man 2' logo consisting of black and yellow webbing against a bright red background. Home plate will remain white." Pitching rubbers and on-deck circles will be similarly decorated.
The NHL allows clubs to sell ads under the ice, but the NBA and NFL refuse to allow promotions to extend onto the playing field itself. Critical views range from the pretensions of John Thorn, who "calls the field 'a sort of a magic circle to which rules accrue and adhere. And if you violate the terms, you run the risk of offending the gods,'" to Bob Costas's calling MLB out for its hypocrisy:
"On the one hand they sell history whenever it suits them, and on the other hand they disrespect it. It isn't a matter of treating the game like it's religion. But I think people have lost the understanding of what the dignity of something is. Not everything is for sale."
MLB President Bob DuPuy predictably defends the move: "These are the same people that didn't like interleague play and didn't like the wild card. [The decoration] "really doesn't have an effect on the game within the foul lines. It's not like we are going to have a red-and-black ball. The game itself won't be affected."
Bob, we didn't like contraction, either. Or your boss/patron's mercifully aborted proposal to do away with the century-old league structure altogether and realign along geographic lines, with all Eastern Time Zone clubs in one league, everyone else in the other. Nor do we appreciate the cronyism which has damaged the game much more than a few logos on the bases ever could. And even if we're not as apoplectic as Ralph Nader, we really don't appreciate attempts to paint this move as something innovative, rather than simple, shameless corporate whoring.
In addition to the field decorations, the weekend-long promotion includes stadium signage, giveaways, Spider-Men climbing light towers and movie trailers on scoreboards. MLB did draw the line somewhere, rejecting a proposal from the film's marketers to hang Spider-Man webbing on the backstop because it would have distracted the players during the game. The promotion is estimated to cost Columbia/TriStar $34-$4 million.
Some teams were leery about the promotion, but were talked into it by MLB. Twins' vice president of marketing Patrick Klinger said, "it's coming from Major League Baseball. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us." (Doesn't he remember MLB's last bright idea involving the Twins?)
Ironically, in light of the Commissioner's emphasis on sharing revenues, since the film's promoters view this as a form of advertising, large-market clubs like the Yankees and Red Sox will receive about twice as much as teams like Kansas City.
(Thanks to Greg Spira for the article.)
Update: Here's the press release announcing the deal.
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In a move that, with any luck, will cause Ralph Nader's head to explode, MLB and Sony Corp. have arranged a promotion for the opening weekend of Spider-Man 2 which provides for ads on the bases.
According to a report by Brian Steinberg and Stefan Fatsis in today's Wall Street Journal (no link yet, maybe later):
"Under a design nearing approval by MLB, the center of the top of first, second and third bases will be adorned with a 7.5-inch-square 'Spider-Man 2' logo consisting of black and yellow webbing against a bright red background. Home plate will remain white." Pitching rubbers and on-deck circles will be similarly decorated.
The NHL allows clubs to sell ads under the ice, but the NBA and NFL refuse to allow promotions to extend onto the playing field itself. Critical views range from the pretensions of John Thorn, who "calls the field 'a sort of a magic circle to which rules accrue and adhere. And if you violate the terms, you run the risk of offending the gods,'" to Bob Costas's calling MLB out for its hypocrisy:
"On the one hand they sell history whenever it suits them, and on the other hand they disrespect it. It isn't a matter of treating the game like it's religion. But I think people have lost the understanding of what the dignity of something is. Not everything is for sale."
MLB President Bob DuPuy predictably defends the move: "These are the same people that didn't like interleague play and didn't like the wild card. [The decoration] "really doesn't have an effect on the game within the foul lines. It's not like we are going to have a red-and-black ball. The game itself won't be affected."
Bob, we didn't like contraction, either. Or your boss/patron's mercifully aborted proposal to do away with the century-old league structure altogether and realign along geographic lines, with all Eastern Time Zone clubs in one league, everyone else in the other. Nor do we appreciate the cronyism which has damaged the game much more than a few logos on the bases ever could. And even if we're not as apoplectic as Ralph Nader, we really don't appreciate attempts to paint this move as something innovative, rather than simple, shameless corporate whoring.
In addition to the field decorations, the weekend-long promotion includes stadium signage, giveaways, Spider-Men climbing light towers and movie trailers on scoreboards. MLB did draw the line somewhere, rejecting a proposal from the film's marketers to hang Spider-Man webbing on the backstop because it would have distracted the players during the game. The promotion is estimated to cost Columbia/TriStar $34-$4 million.
Some teams were leery about the promotion, but were talked into it by MLB. Twins' vice president of marketing Patrick Klinger said, "it's coming from Major League Baseball. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us." (Doesn't he remember MLB's last bright idea involving the Twins?)
Ironically, in light of the Commissioner's emphasis on sharing revenues, since the film's promoters view this as a form of advertising, large-market clubs like the Yankees and Red Sox will receive about twice as much as teams like Kansas City.
(Thanks to Greg Spira for the article.)
Update: Here's the press release announcing the deal.
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