“We need to reach out to a younger demographic to bring them to the ballpark.”
That may be true, but how the hell to you get from there to putting Spider-man 2 advertisements on bases at Major League stadiums for a weekend?
Is it too much to ask to keep advertisements out of the field of play? And does Spider-man 2, the sequal of a record-setting box office smash, really need more advertising? And is linking baseball with a genetically modified superhero really a good idea?
Former Commissioner Fay Vincent calls it “Inevitable but sad.”
I have no major problem with corporate-named stadiums - that trend is as old as Wrigley. It was funny when Houston has to rename its Enron Park. Sure, “Dodger Stadium” has a nicer ring that “PetCo Park,” but baseball and advertising have gone hand-in-hand for years. The first baseball cards came with tobacco and Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams hawked cigarettes.
I can’t wait for the inevitable (but sad) Jay Leno joke:
“The investigation into steroid use in Major League Baseball has found that Barry Bonds did nothing illegal. He was just bitten by a genetically-altered spider. Yeah.”