Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Raping the Corpse of the Golden Goose


I recognize marketing or advertising or whatever you call it is a tough racket. I know I can barely get through my 11am meeting without a bracing shot of Wild Turkey. But the good people charged with marketing the Toronto Blue Jays have gone a little overboard.

During tonight's broadcast, I saw promos trumpeting tomorrow's Halladay start as "possibly his last." THE THIRD SUCH START IN TWO WEEKS. Look suits, you got two nice home dates out of this, a shit-tonne of media from outlets that would sooner cover curling rink de-thawings but enough is enough. The latest promo featured shots of a teenaged Roy Halladay slipping on a Blue Jays hat in his Denver-area kitchen. ENOUGH MANIPULATION.

Selling baseball to self-loathing Torontonians is a difficult ask, yes. But could you at least get past the obvious inferiority complex and stop brazenly picking our scabs right in front of us? It somehow makes the entire publicity stunt look cheaper and more contrived, something J.P. is capable of doing all on his own.

Tangentially related image courtesy of Warming Glow

6 comments:

  1. The most overused phrase in Toronto Sports Media in the past week:

    "what could be his last start with the Blue Jays"

    They've definitely milked this one for all it's worth!

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  2. The terrifying truth is that he MAY have made his last start. I'm gonna be on pins and needles until he takes the hill today.

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  3. Total bullshit that the parent co is playing up the angle to sell airspace. Awful.

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  4. Every start could be his last start with the Blue Jays. The Jays could decline to revoke his trade waivers. He could get hit by the team bus. The team could rename itself the Cablesystem Jays.

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  5. I don't know what this post all about, since I kept staring at Christina Hendricks and refusing to scroll down until I was ready.

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