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And Tonight, Home Plate is Sponsored by Durex Condoms. You Can't Score Without Durex.
Now that my parents are reading my weblog, I thought it appropriate to have the unnecessarily-scandalous subject line. But this post is not about protected sex, it's about advertising, and more specifically itty-bitty squares on the bases of Major League Baseball games.
If you've spent all week "studying" or "preparing for graduation" rather than browsing the web like I have, then you might have missed the news that for one weekend in June, advertisements for the movie Spider-Man 2 would be put on the tops of the bases. You especially might have missed the news since one day later the marketing folks did a 180 and decided against it. They attributed their sudden reversal to internet polls that showed fans were against it.
First of all, if decision-makers listened to internet polls, Al Gore would be our current president and the characters on Fox's The O.C. would undergo wild personality changes from episode to episode based on popular opinion. And that would just be ludicrous.
But more importantly, why in the world did they ever consider this idea in the first place? Sportswriters lit into the movie company and Bud Selig for "ruining the sanctity of the playing field", but did anyone bother to think about who the hell would see a tiny ad on the top of a base? The following major demographics are exposed to the top of a base on a regular basis: major league first basemen. Granted, Jason Giambi has some extra cash now that he's not using it to buy steroids, but I don't think he will singlehandedly see Spider-Man 2 enough times to warrant Sony Pictures' spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the ad campaign.
Think about every shot you've seen of a base on Sportscenter or during a baseball broadcast. They're all wide-angle shots, and they're definitely all taken from a 45 degree or lower angle to the playing surface. None of them are helicopter-shot closeups of the base, and these ads are so small that only such a shot would allow you to discern that the red splotch on second base is a plug for Spider-Man rather than the result of Derek Jeter cutting is hand on a headfirst dive.
If you're going to ruin baseball with shameless on-field advertising, at least do it in a way that makes sense. It shouldn't take an internet poll to realize this.
Comments
Great post. I love the line about Giambi now having more cash.
Posted by: Rachel at May 10, 2004 10:27 AM
Thanks, I like to take any opportunity I can to take shots at the Yankees :-)
Posted by: Chris Hill Festival at May 10, 2004 10:31 AM
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