How Do You Save the Newspaper Industry?
Have more baseball players switch teams.
With advertising rates plummeting and demand drying up, newspapers across the country are desperately searching for new ways to generate revenue. Meanwhile, a growing number of professional athletes, especially baseball players, are taking out ads. The idea behind the ads is to thank the team they’re leaving, and more specifically the fans of the team they’re leaving, for supporting them through all the years they spent in that city.
It’s a great idea, one that builds good will and makes the player look genuinely thoughtful and classy, even as he’s leaving for greener pastures. Kerry Wood took out an ad on Sunday, thanking Cubs fans for their support and vowing that he’ll “always be a Chicagoan”, even though he’s now a Cleveland Indian making $10 million a year.
The latest player to follow this trend is Rocco Baldelli. The former Tampa Bay Ray recently signed a deal to join the rival Boston Red Sox. It’s a move that’s made many Rays fans unhappy. Baldelli was once a top prospect, labeled by some overenthusiastic fans as showing shades of Joe DiMaggio. But years of injuries derailed Baldelli’s progress, and he never established himself as the star player the Rays hoped to get.
Still, no one seems to be blaming Baldelli for his decision to sign with the Sox. The Rays were able to sign Gabe Kapler to replace Baldelli for a guaranteed price of $1,000,018 (18 for “Chai”, which means “Life” in Hebrew…you gotta love the man some ladies call “Gabe the Babe”). Baldelli meanwhile stands to make much more than that if he reaches certain incentives, moving him out of the Rays’ price range.
After Baldelli’s ad appeared in the St. Petersburg Times, though, Rays fans are feeling even more wistful about their departing hero. A snippet:
Nine years ago you welcomed me into your community. You greeted me as a name and embraced me as a person, and I leave you now as a friend.
Would anyone in the Tampa/St. Pete area object if Baldelli finally had his breakout season in 2009, hitting .300 with 30 home runs and winning a Gold Glove for his outfield defense…while in the meantime the Rays beat the Red Sox in the standings?
Me neither.
Tags: Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Gabe Kapler, Kerry Wood, Newspaper advertising, Rocco Baldelli, Sports, Tampa Bay Rays
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
21 January 2009 at 5:53 pm
This is very interesting…I like it.
Give our ball players a venue and keep papers alive?
Molly
http://www.mdbirdlover.wordpress.com
22 January 2009 at 9:05 pm
[...] Perhaps more important is the faint hope that more paid thank you notes from ballplayers could save the struggling newspaper industry — a theory put forth by clever Tampa Bay cheerleader Jonah Keri. [...]
22 January 2009 at 9:27 pm
[...] Perhaps more important is the faint hope that more paid thank you notes from ballplayers could save the struggling newspaper industry — a theory put forth by clever Tampa Bay cheerleader Jonah Keri. [...]