MLB sells out to Spiderman.

[roary]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Spider-Man is coming to a base near you.

 

Ads for ``Spider-Man 2'' will be placed atop bases at major league ballparks during games from June 11-13 as part of a promotion announced Wednesday.

 

The move is the latest push by baseball to increase its marketing to younger fans -- and make money along the way.

 

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``I guess it's inevitable, but it's sad,'' said Fay Vincent, a former baseball commissioner and former president of Columbia Pictures, which is releasing the movie. ``I'm old-fashioned. I'm a romanticist. I think the bases should be protected from this.''

 

The ``Spider-Man'' promotion has been in the works for more than a year and will include ad buys and ballpark events, such as giving masks to fans, said Jacqueline Parkes, baseball's senior vice president for marketing and advertising. The ads, about 4 inches long, won't appear on home plates.

 

The announcement of the promotion, first reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, comes a week after jockeys at the Kentucky Derby won the right to wear ads on their uniforms.

 

``Spider-Man'' opens June 30, and the weekend in early June was picked because it is during interleague play, which draws higher attendance than usual.

 

``We need to reach out to a younger demographic to bring them to the ballpark,'' Parkes said. ``They are looking for nontraditional breakthrough ways to convey 'Spider-Man' messaging. ... It's the future of how we generate excitement inside the stadium and about the game itself.''

 

Baseball will receive about $3.6 million in a deal negotiated by Major League Baseball Properties with Marvel Studios and Columbia Pictures, a division of Sony Inc., a high-ranking baseball executive said on condition of anonymity.

 

The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox will get more than $100,000 each, one team executive said, also on condition of anonymity. Most other 13 teams that are home that weekend will get about $50,000 apiece, the executive said.

 

Parkes said the amount a team receives depends on the level of its participation. Geoffrey Ammer, president of marketing for the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, was not immediately available for comment, spokesman Steve Elzer said.

 

Ralph Nader, a presidential candidate and consumer advocate, criticized the deal. He wrote Tuesday to baseball commissioner Bud Selig, denouncing the decision to have ads on uniforms during the season-opening series in March between the Yankees and Tampa Bay in Tokyo.

 

``It's gotten beyond grotesque,'' Nader said. ``The fans have to revolt here. Otherwise, they'll be looking at advertisements between advertisements.''

 

In separate promotions, the bases also will feature pink ribbons Sunday as part of a Mother's Day promotion to raise breast-cancer awareness, and they will have blue ribbons on Father's Day, June 20, to raise prostate-cancer awareness.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylc=X3oD...ov=ap&type=lgns

 

Why would baseball do this? It takes away from the integrity of a game when you have to see advertisements BELOW PLAYERS' FEET! 100,000 woohoo, lets completely give away any shred of dignity we had left so we can buy socks for the AA team. Good grief.

[Tek04]

I heard about this on Around the Horn today and it is such a joke. If the digital advertisements behind homeplate arent bad enough

[yawkeyway]

I just heard the Yankees were refusing to partake in this, I dont remember where. It seems really low to me. Has the game been degraded so much that the bases aren't even safe any more (haha, play on words like with a stolen base, get it)? Whats next? Logos on hats? Players changing their names to "McDonals" and "Duracell"?

[YanksHater213]

The spidermen on the bases is now a no go due to the heavy criticism. they will still be featuerd in on-deck circles

[Benny9Sox7]

I find this completely stupid. They just put ads on the backs of the racers in the Kentucky durby. Its not like alot of there places/things need more ads to sell stuff. Sports should be seperate. I like the bases that have like #8 wen Ripken retired and stuff because that has to do with the game of baseball. But Spiderman??? cmon now.

[DuffyCliff]

I heard some rep. saying they are also using it as a way to get fans to come to the ballpark more.

 

Yeah, um, you can do that ******** with the 28 other teams not named the Boston Red Sox or Chicago Cubs and put that in ballparks not named Fenway or Wrigley. We're doing just fine filling the seats, thank you very much.

[Benny9Sox7]

I know no kidden huh?. People go to baseball games to watch baseball, not cuz of some stupid ad on a base. Like people would spend $50 or sumodd bux to look at a base. I know that I would not. LETS ALL GO TO THE GAME SO WE CAN SEE THE FAMOUS SPIDERMAN AD ON 2ND BASE. Give me a break

[DuffyCliff]

Next thing you know they are putting logos on the uniforms. Now I'm not talking about Majestic or Adidas for NFL jerseys. I'm talking about outside advertisements.. such as SPIDER-MAN. They already had RICOH patches on the Yankee pinstripes. That was disgusting. I would throw up if I saw something like that on a classic Boston uniform. The All-Star patches in 1999 were ok, and I liked the "9"'s after Ted's passing, actually wouldn't mind those full time, but Spider-Man, Ricoh.... nu-uh.

[Benny9Sox7]

No kidden, I would boycott baseball untill they took them off. There is no need for that at all. They are already advertizing a franchize on their jerseys and thats their teams

[CrespoBlows]

Not that big of a deal, it adds revenue to the sport. So thats an upside, but its not on the bases anymore.

[Tek04]

Well they are not gonna put the spiderman logo on the infeild, which is a good thing...but the spiderman logo's will be in the ondeck circles

[DuffyCliff]

Originally posted by CrespoBlows@May 7 2004, 08:19 AM

Not that big of a deal, it adds revenue to the sport. So thats an upside, but its not on the bases anymore.

Yeah, because it is all about $$$$$

 

Throw credibility and integrity out the window.

[Benny9Sox7]

i think its a big deal, because its stupid. Revenue and watever, in my mind it'll ruin the game

[Tek04]

everything is getting way to expensive and we need these crappy new advertising schemes to pay for everything.

[RoyNHSox]

And this advertising idea will take place during another MLB money-making idea: interleague baseball.

[Benny9Sox7]

I myself love interleague play. But i hate the idea of them advertizing on the uniforms. Next thing you know the players wont be wearing numbers or names on their backs, but they will be wearing stupid advertizments

[roary]

If they start advertising on unifroms a la European soccer, I would never forgive them. It would be like the 94 strike... only 10 times worse. This was one small step on the path to that horrible day when ads appear on a batting helmet.

 

Just the fact that they would entertain thoughts of advertising on bases is sickening. Worse things are in the planning stages, I'm sure.

 

ps: Remember when John Henry made Ted Williams wear that STUPID hitter.com hat for the 1999 all star game? Yea, that pissed me off to. I just remembered that.