“One Man’s Opinion” by Gordon Curvey

One thing I have noticed for the last few years is this. The marketing of Major League Baseball is one word readers and one word only……TERRIBLE!!

Baseball is living in the past. The 50’s and 60’s. This is 2011. Here is a very important question. How many TV commercials have you seen with baseball players in them? Not many.

Right now the only one I can name is New York Yankee Derek Jeter. That is about it. The question is why is this happening?

Here in Seattle. We have a very marketable player in Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez. BUT the marketing of King Felix is terrible. He is in zero commercials in the Seattle area. Just nothing.

Why is it NBA players and even ex NBA players are making commercials. Guys like Charles Barkley, Dr. J, Dwight Howard, D-Rose, D-Wade, LeBron James, Shaq, Karl Malone, Kareem, Kobe and others are in commercials.

Football players like Joe Montana, Ray Lewis and others are doing commercials. Where is the baseball players like Ryan Howard or Ce Ce Sabathia and others?

When you listen to a interview with a baseball player it is very very boring. They talk like there mom just died or their dog ran away or something. ZERO personality. No charisma at all. Something is just not right.

Maybe this is why young inner city kids are not playing baseball. They do not see them on TV like they see basketball and football players. In my opinion the game of baseball has a lot of work to do when it comes to marketing the game. Again this is not the 50’s and 60’s. This is 2011.