Kepner: MLB’s Latest Tasteless Money Grab? Ads on Helmets

The beauty of baseball, and it always has been, is that the game itself is so enchanting, so compelling, so charmingly ridiculous that the people who run it know that no matter what they do with it, you’re going to keep coming back.

This latest humiliation is not a scandal. It’s not the Black Sox or the color barrier or canceling a World Series or steroids. It’s just another sign that the commissioner’s office doesn’t think Major League Baseball is as special and distinctive as it should be.

In next month’s post-season, the logo of a German company that produces high-quality workwear will “adorn” every player’s batting helmet.

GALLING DEEPER

MLB to Place Ads on Playoff Batting Helmets

Funny word choice there, from the MLB press release: adorn. The dictionary definition is to beautify; that is, to enhance the appearance of something by adding something to it — such as ornaments on a Christmas tree.

But hey, everyone has their own idea of ​​beauty. For entrepreneurs, beauty is money, and that is of course a big part of commissioner Rob Manfred’s job. He leads 30 owners who want to make money.

But baseball doesn’t chase every last dollar it can. In fact, there are some set limits.

Teams are still named after cities and regions, not companies, as they are in Japan. A few teams still don’t sell naming rights to their stadiums — Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium, and so on. The winner of the World Series gets the “commissioner’s trophy” — not, say, a large can of Del Monte on a wooden pedestal.

Maybe that’s all yet to come. Through 2022, the uniform was an ad-free zone, save for the logos of the companies that made the garments, which at least made sense contextually. Starting last season, though, teams were allowed to sell space on their sleeve patches — either the left or right sleeve, depending on which is more likely to be in front of the TV camera — and 23 of 30 teams have done that. Only the Mets bothered to change their colors when the colors clashed.

Steve Cohen says the Mets ad patch has the “Phillies colors” and they’re going to change the design to be more in line with the Mets colors.

— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) April 7, 2023

Now come the helmet ads, which do nothing to improve MLB’s product but might just inspire you to buy a pair of $99.99 cargo work pants. The CEO of the sponsoring company obviously thinks this is great, as he tells us in this lame quote from the press release:

“Whether you’re on the field or in the field, your gear is a source of pride. We know fans of America’s pastime are loyal, dedicated and value a job well done — just like (insert company name here) fans around the world who love our family’s iconic ostrich logo.”

(One more linguistic digression: can we reserve “iconic” for things that are actually widely admired, influential, or important?)

The company’s logo will run horizontally across the side of the batting helmet, with the not-so-iconic ostrich next to the company’s name. It will appear in all postseason games starting next month, plus all minor-league games starting next season (and MLB regular-season games in Europe, setting an odd precedent for overseas games).

Yeah, the NBA and NHL and football have advertising patches. Whatever. If the NBA and NHL and football jumped off a bridge… you know the saying. Anyway, wouldn’t it be great if baseball held itself to a higher standard?

It’s easy, from the perspective of someone who’s never run a business, to say that MLB should have stood up to yet another money grab. But come on. It’s so tacky and so sad that the league’s overlords have so little regard for the visual presentation of their product. They should be better than this.

To be fair, the league does a lot of things right. Manfred’s push for a pitch clock, and the thoughtful, methodically researched way MLB did it, has improved the game more than the overabundance of advertising has detracted. The pitch clock has been an overwhelming success, taking away nothing from the content and restoring the natural pace of the game. A thousand hosannas.

That innovation showed how something positive can come from financial motivation. The pitch clock made MLB a more attractive product, so everyone won. There is no benefit to the fans here. A helmet ad is not going to grow the business.

As tasteless as it is, it probably won’t make the business any smaller. Baseball has a way of grabbing hold of its diehard fans and never letting them go, and MLB knows it. It’s just a shame that the league exploits such loyalty with petty insults like this.

Sorry, no insults. Decorations.

(Photo: Mary DeCicco/MLB Photos via Getty Images)