Now Playing First Base… Spider-Man
MLB announced an agreement today that will put ads for the upcoming Spider-Man 2 movie on the bases at Major League parks the weekend of June 11-13. I previously criticized the advertising frenzy when commenting about the Yankees opening the season in Japan. (Ralph Nader agrees with me but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.)
I’m going to go out on a limb now and suggest that this deal should invalidate the MLB’s contention that they should be exempt from antitrust laws because baseball is a game and not a business. This deal clearly shows that business is the order of the day and not the game itself.
MLB marketing is saying how this promotion is a way to reach out to a younger demographic. They say “It’s the future of how we generate excitement inside the stadium and about the game itself.” Shouldn’t the game itself be generating the excitement? It all seems a bit much on the marketing end and not enough on game issues (such as drug/steroid use, the strike zone and the balk rule).
What does it say for your game when you charge $3.6 million for prime advertising and “5-7%” of your athletes are using steroids? It says your game is really a big business. And if it’s a business then it shouldn’t be exempt from antitrust.
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