Mascots: Charm, Sorcery, and Furry Giants

This has been a draft for six years. SIX. YEARS. I guess now's just as good a time as any to fill out what I originally had, yeah?

To get started here, I'm going to throw down a statistic here that will aid in my explanation. Outside of sports, there is a huge fact about branding:

"Children ages 2-11 see more than 25,000 advertisements a year on TV alone ... a figure that does not include product placement. They are also targeted with advertising on the Internet, cell phones, mp3 players, video games, school buses, and in school." [1]

This statistic ultimately skyrockets as you age and expose yourself to more advertisements and branding. You think I'm deviating from the actual topic at hand, but I'm not. As a child, you're going to be exposed to a bunch of different things, and the more colorful and cartoonish they appear, the more appealing they'll be to kids, or the more they will induce nightmares. Even so, it makes them memorable.

The main idea you have to think of is this: when children are younger, and their parents or family members take them to games, aside from big-name players, who are they going to remember the most?

The mascots. The big furry buddies that show up during the games and pump up the fans.

What exactly is a mascot? Well, etymology can clear that up for us. The word comes from the French mascotte, ultimately meaning "charm" (the derivative term, mascoto, means witch, but anyway...). In the very early days of baseball in the 1880's, different "charms," or mascots, took the form of children or real-life animals. No, now is not the time to assume the "Curse of the Billy Goat" originated from this kind of mascot, as that's a completely different story.

By the MLB expansion in the 1960's, mascots became more plentiful, as Mr. Met made an appearance, the San Diego Chicken began his legacy, and the Phillie Phanatic hatched his way into the hearts of fans and haters alike. [2]

Professional team mascots are huge instruments in an organization's humanitarian work and their public relations outside of sporting events. They're animated due to their inability to speak, and their warm and fuzzy exterior is usually enough to bring a lighthearted feel to the room they walk into. They may not be actual superheroes, but they're larger-than-life figures that breathe, eat, and sleep energy. Actions speak louder than words, after all. While their purpose is not to convert people to be fans of a particular sport, they're there for physical support as well as giving brand awareness to those to support other causes in their area.

There aren't just mascots at the professional level, but they also exist in high school and college environments. A number of them do crazy stunts during breaks, and they also make appearances at school functions to promote their branding and appeal to other audiences. It usually isn't at the same level as professional mascots, but they're still there for similar reasons.

I was a mascot once for a parade, and it was fun. Like, really, really fun. The kids LOVED me.

This was back in 2008. I missed the NLDS clincher between the Phillies and Brewers that day.

When you think about it, it takes a lot for a mascot of one team to actually be memorable with another city or other leagues. Unless there aren't a number of videos of their antics online or in the news, you're not going to hear much outside of what your local mascots do.

Then Gritty happened.

Photo from Twitter @GrittyNHL - Photo URL: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dn3mx-bXUAInf87.jpg

I remember that morning in late September, when I had another iPhone placed in front of my face to show me the Philadelphia Flyers' new mascot. In a terrified way, I yelled. But because of the initial reception of the big, orange furball, as well as the handling of his social media account, he became hosuehold name not only in the Philly area, but all over the flipping country. From wanting to be the "Person of the Year" for Time Magazine, to getting called out by Bailey the LA Kings Bear, he has the look and the attitude where people are going to remember him.

This is what makes mascots great, especially in the current days of social media. Not only are they still "good luck charms," but they're also a kind of "spokesperson" for the team. They are the prime representatives of a brand. They're also representative of the fans. They show how much heart the fans have, as well as the types of people they represent. There's lightheartedness, there's storytelling, such as how Teddy Roosevelt struggled to win a President's Race at RFK/Nationals Park for a number of years, and there's even competition among rival mascots as well.

Mascots are the extended arm for the team and their fans.
Except if you're Tommy Lasorda. Then they're just nuisances.

The presence of a mascot can greatly enhance the entertainment factor of a game. It doesn't always take much for them to fire up fans with their quirks, and when they get going, it's usually at the best time possible. One thing's for sure, I'm glad that they did away with the olden times of using uniformed kids and real animals to get the crowd into it. Reading about it now, it made sense at that time, but the idea definitely didn't age well, and it would be rather creepy if that held up today.

You'd best believe that when the team energy and the fan momentum falters, the mascots will be there to save you and your sanity.

-- Stephanie

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Other articles referenced:

[1] Marketing to Children Overview - Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood - https://commercialfreechildhood.org/resource/marketing-children-overview
[2] Who - Or What - Was the First Sports Mascot and How Did the Practice Start? - Today I Found Out - http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/09/first-sports-mascot/

The Long, Long, Long, Long Journey to October

I love baseball as much as the next person. But as I'm getting older, there's a difference between endurance and overkill.

Here it is, lovely people. As of this posting, we are about 24 hours away from Opening Day for the 2019 MLB season. Blockbuster signings have happened in the offseason, knees have literally exploded, and foolish attempts to shorten the length of the game have run rampant once again.

Regardless of whether you're looking forward to the season or not, you're willing to wonder how long it takes before people begin to lose interest and start thinking about other sports again. After all, the NFL draft is coming up in a few weeks, and we're on the heels of the playoffs for both the NBA and NHL. It isn't that the game has become boring, per se, but in my older age, I will admit that the season has become quite long. As I mentioned in my previous post, there's always a guarantee that I'll have something to watch on TV when I'm not working, and I'm perfectly down with that.

But after a while, you tend to ask yourself, "Why?"

Even in the early days of baseball, up until the increase of teams in the 1960's, there were still upwards of 150 games played, as each team played their divisional opponents 22 times per season. [1] It sounds crazy, but the game was also much different back then. In those days, it was rather common to see pitchers tossing the entire game, and the quality of the equipment definitely made a difference, especially in the offensive department. Today, it's all about stats, performance, and the pace of the game.

One thing we've forgotten though, is that while those final points above are important, the human body, while it can do incredible things, is still a vessel that needs care, as the quality of it can decline as time progresses. Not every player on the 25-man roster can play all 162 games in a season. In fact, it's very rare. There are cases in which a player is placed on the disabled list from anywhere between 7 days (usually for concussions) or up to 60 for muscle strains or broken bones. You could be conditioned and be in the best physical shape possible, but freak accidents can still happen, and longevity can be placed at risk in a game like this. Plus, a mini-paternity leave has also been implemented in the league within the past few years, which honestly, that's pretty cool, and I'm a huge fan of that.

From a mentality standpoint not only from the players, but from the fans, eight months of being on the road and having to keep focus in a strategy-centric sport can be rather taxing. Is it really that important to play so much? Sure, there are players that go south of the US and play in the winter leagues to keep in form, but those games usually aren't as demanding and as crucial to the business in which they ultimately pledge allegiance to. While it may be a lifestyle, it has gotten to the point where we're losing interest because there's too much stimulation.

Hear me out.

You stand in front of a free cookie vending machine, and when you press the big blue button, a cookie comes popping out. Woohoo! Free cookie! Whenever you want more, you keep pressing the button. More cookies! Then, from pressing it so hard and so often, the button breaks, and cookies just keep coming out. You're going to get awfully tired of seeing all of the cookies flying out, and there is no way on this green earth that you're going to eat all of them without making yourself sick or near death.

This is Major League Baseball.
The button is broken.
There's too much of the game for consumption, and most fans are just tired of it.

Instead of shortening the length of the game itself, the marketing of the game and its players needs to change for sure. You can read my previous post about that below [but finish reading this one first]. Most of all, it should start being considered by Mr. Manfred and company that we just might not need as many games in the season anymore. We can find other ways to shorten the game. They're not going to be the easiest to pull off, but it might end up being more profitable in the end.

--

Here are a couple of suggestions to how this whole "shortening" business can be implemented in a much simpler way:

1) Eliminating multiple series with non-divisional opponents.

You'll notice that in the NFL, you don't play every single team in the league. Not only that, if they're not in your division, you won't play a given team more than once. For example, if you're the New Orleans Saints and you're playing the LA Rams--wait, I think I just rehashed some semi-healed wounds there, Who Dat Nation, my bad--you're either going to play them at the Superdome in the Bayou, or you're going out west to the LA Coliseum. You don't need anything more than that. If you're the St. Louis Cardinals, there's no reason you need to play the Miami Marlins both at home and in Florida. If you take away a lot of those extra series, and decide whether a non-divisional team plays home or away in a particular series, that easily shaves off about 50 games right off the bat (no pun intended).

2) Doing away with two-game and four-game series.

The two-game series are a fairly new thing in Major League Baseball, but four-game series have been a thing in the majors for a long while. If the first reason is enforced, there is less of a chance to split hairs in series records, and there is less travel involved when there is a two-game series.

This can probably be done without having to shorten the season at all. Rescheduling is all that really needs to be done here.

3) Reduce Spring Training.

I'm willing to bet that there are a number of people that are in agreement over this. Considering how long Spring Training is, it's a lot more endurance required by players at the Major League level to stay at top form. Sure, this will reduce the chance of minor league players making the 40-man roster, or it will add a little more strain to the decision-making process of the coaching staff, but how many games do you really need to know that you have the team that you need to play healthy and consistently for the next six months?

--


With all of those points noted, there is a serious backup that could definitely prevent this idea of a shorter season ever happening, and when it hit me after filling out all of those points above, my jaw did this kind of existential drop where everything went into slow motion and I saw these nuclear explosions all around me. This song was also playing, too.


PER MY LAST POST:
Remember how massive those player contracts were?

It doesn't stop there.

Say, for instance, that the season was reduced to 110 games, give or take a few. This would ultimately lead to higher ticket prices and higher prices in concessions since the ballparks have to make more business than usual (Note: I have a personal experience with the current insanity, as it was crazy enough that I drank a 16oz Miller Light can that cost $9 at Citizens' Bank Park last August, and a chicken sandwich by itself was $7.) Instead of "going to the ballpark on a whim" being a choice, it'll become more of a hard decision. If you're also eating on top of buying a ticket to the game--remember, you can't bring things in anymore--you're going to be shelling out more cash. This would be exponentially worse if the amount of home games are shortened for your team.

Granted, if you already incorporate the idea of the overall cost of a family of four going to a ballgame in some places, you figure:

• Average price of cheap seats in a Major League ballpark: ranging anywhere from $20-$40
• Average price of parking: anywhere from $10 to $30
• Average price of a full meal and drink: Meal could be upwards of $10 per person, plus $2-$5 extra for a drink

Now, multiply those prices by four.
Don't forget souvenirs, too!

(Note: Prices are ultimately going to vary on region. Prices in the California ballparks will obviously vary from ballparks in New York, and so on and so forth.) [2] 

The gift of American financial inflation doesn't exactly do us any good. Back in the 80's and 90's, you could make a day at the ballpark and not have to spend much. Today, you have to plan a day at the ballpark and budget the day as if it's a vacation. You can't have this as a luxury; it falls into the same track as NFL games, concerts, or other sporting events.
Think about it--there are about 80 home games every season, and the ticket and concessions rates run about the same as concerts and NFL games, and there are only eight or nine home NFL games every season.

Imagine how much more of an impact a shorter baseball season would come down upon the fans and the wallets. It would be massive.

What kind of monster have we created here?

Due to the business that is being run today, it's hard to reduce a season, and what we have right now is what we have to keep. It's like trying to take ingredients out of a mixture when they've already been mixed in. Is it detrimental to the players and teams as a whole? We haven't seen a lot of that, but you also have to wonder about the teams that haven't been contenders in the last couple of seasons, and what it's going to take for them to get their fanbase back. It's something that owners and the like have to consider, especially when it's a long season, and they need people to watch the games in order to keep their team running.

Well, nuts.

I hate it when I run into self-made roadblocks while trying to make a point of conversation.

I guess for me that this is going to be a very long journey to October.
I just hope you're well-hydrated and strapped in. It's time for 2,430 games in the next six months.


-- Stephanie

___________________
Other articles referenced:

[1] Why 162 Games? - The Sports Historian - https://www.thesportshistorian.com/why-162-games/#
[2] The 7 most and least expensive stadiums to watch a Major League Baseball game - CBS News - https://www.cbsnews.com/media/the-7-most-and-least-expensive-stadiums-to-watch-a-major-league-baseball-game/2/

Major League Baseball's Identity Crisis

Your eyes aren't deceiving you. It's been well over two years since I've written in this blog. Not too long after I wrote the last post, a short film happened. Then my faithful laptop of ten years died last summer. They aren't excuses. I had a good time, and some crises happened. But I feel like I need to write in here once more.

As I take a sip of ChocoVine and put my fingers to these keys, another baseball season is finally upon us, and my wardrobe changes to adjust to that. It's the time of year where I actually have something to either watch on television every single night, or listen to a broadcast on the radio. The football season has become that for me, and that isn't because the Eagles actually won a Super Bowl in the time I haven't written in here. I digress on that point.

Yesterday morning, we all witnessed a storybook retirement for one Ichiro Suzuki, as he gave his thank yous and waved his goodbyes in front of a Japanese crowd during the eighth inning against the Oakland A's during their Japan series. It was pretty amazing, and it felt like a piece of my childhood was ending. Although he didn't ever experience a World Series (the Mariners totally could have if the Yankees hadn't prevented that in 2001), he was still a master class in the batter's box, and was always a class act on and off the field.

I'm going to miss him, but not for the reason that you would think.

For the last five or six years, it hasn't come as any surprise that general interest in baseball hasn't been as strong as it has in years past. I can say that I fell into that category, and it wasn't because the Phillies started tanking and their dynasty died a fiery death. Mr. Manfred over in MLB's headquarters think that general loss of interest is because the average time of a game is too long. Funny, that was the exact thing I complained about in my last post two years ago. Here we are, still dealing with it after all of this time.

Even if you don't have a marketing or a public relations degree, it shouldn't be that hard to see that MLB's identity crisis goes way beyond keeping millennials seated in a folding chair for more than three hours.

It has everything to do with the marketing of the players. It has literally become a lost art, and it absolutely burns in every open wound and welt from a slide and hit-by-pitch.

When you watch a sport, you really should know the other teams involved, and know what kind of special players exist in the league to keep things fresh. My favorite thing to do in the last two years have been to ask people who aren't the absolute biggest baseball fans to name five big MLB players that aren't even on their own team. The two most common I had gotten were Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, and then I'd get names of guys that have long since retired.

General interest in ballplayers reached a head in mainstream news, not because they were good or because they were under the gavel of the law due to domestic abuse, but because they were receiving the biggest contracts ever administered in the history of sports. When Alex Rodriguez signed his ten-year, $275 million deal with the New York Yankees in 2007, that kind of contract was unheard of.

Now, twelve years later, we have:

• Nolan Arenado of the Rockies with an eight-year, $260 million deal
• Manny Machado of the Padres with a ten-year, $300 million contract
• Bryce Harper of the Phillies with a thirteen-year, $330 million deal
• Mike Trout of the Angels with a twelve-year, wait for it, $426.5 million contract

**It also worth mentioning that Giancarlo Stanton is also in the fourth year of his twelve-year, $325 deal with the Miami Marlins**

If you took a look at the highest-paid athletes in the world, SIXTEEN of the Top-20 paid athletes in the world are MLB players (three of the remaining four are NBA players, and the other is a boxer, which is really uncanny).

If you're pumping out this much money to have your talent, why on this green earth are they not getting marketed properly?!

I'd like to provide the largest example of how it isn't happening at all.

Remember this commercial?
LEBRON JAMES IS ON THE MOUND. HE IS A BASKETBALL PLAYER.
Why don't you have someone like Clayton Kershaw or Max Scherzer do it?

The lack of marketing and endorsement deals that baseball players have received have been slim to none, and when your biggest marketing effort is Little League, Nike, and New Balance, there's a serious problem. A 2016 article from the International Business Times attributes it to the idea that players are on the road for so many days of the year, and a 162-game schedule isn't ideal to promote a brand or ensure brand loyalty. [1] Now, when you throw this into the conversation, there's obviously one of two things wrong with this: (1) It's a lame excuse, because I remember seeing big-name players in advertising in the late-90's and early-2000's during the MLB season, and (2) It's becoming painfully evident that it isn't the length of a single game, but the length of the season as a whole has finally become too much for the average consumer.

(At some point, I'll write about how the 162-game season should go the way of the dinosaur. I think it'll be great writing therapy for a now-disgruntled sports fan like myself.)

When it comes to marketing the player, the main goal doesn't become brand loyalty to the product their endorsing, but becoming the face of the league in which they play. It has been stated year in and year out that guys like Mike Trout don't want that attention, and he's arguably one of the hottest names in baseball today. So, that being said, who is willing to grab that brass ring and keep the game alive? It goes beyond skill and longevity today. It's all about image and identity.

Okay, so the biggest argument I have going against me on this one is the fact that baseball 20-25 years prior was more than just table conversation and player marketing. The game was so much more different before the steroid scandals, because some of the feats achieved were superhero-like. The drama behind each game was like watching Attitude Era WWE wondering what was going to happen on this week's edition on "This Week In Baseball." It wasn't an overly proud time in baseball, but seeing what was going to happen in the home run wars was must-see TV.
This doesn't poo-poo the fact that watching impressive pitching performances in today's game isn't so at all, but the implementation of sabermetrics and the need for hard-hitting action in the game in a short amount of time is the figurative equivalent of steroids in the 1990's. Strength is good, but longevity and brandworthy moments are important to the growth of the game.

Give them a reason to keep returning to the stadium and the TV sets, not a reason to walk away from the stadium and the TVs faster.

I end this post with asking Kyler Murray this one question: How do you like waiting for the NFL draft knowing you missed out on a massive payday?

-- Stephanie

___________________
Other articles referenced:

[1] MLB Stars Get Massive Contracts But Few Endorsements. Here's Why. - International Business Times - https://www.ibtimes.com/mlb-stars-get-massive-contracts-few-endorsements-heres-why-2348181