Larry Bernandez

Like many baseball fans living in the Midwest, I start getting excited for the upcoming season when the snow starts to melt.  Baseball is a sign that spring is near and that it is safe to get off the couch to go outside to enjoy a game.  Unlike nearly all of my fellow hibernating Midwestern baseball fans, I follow the Seattle Mariners.  I grew up going to games in the Kingdome and cheering for Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Jay Buhner, Randy Johnson, and Edgar/Tino Martinez.  I moved to Iowa when I was in 5th grade, but have remained a huge Mariners fan ever since. 

My wife, Hailey, will disagree that the nice weather actually does get me off my couch, so the real sign for me that the baseball season is finally almost here is when the Mariners release their commercials. My favorite 2011 Mariners commercial is titled "Encore, Encore" and stars 2010 Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez.  While I am certainly biased in many ways (huge Ms fan & Felix is the only jersey I own after the Cutler debacle...) I absolutely LOVED this commercial.  Here it is:

The Mariners marketing department must have received an amazing amount of positive feedback from this commercial.  Within a few days after the commercial was first released online there was a team controlled twitter feed (@Larry_Bernandez) and they recently announced that they will be having a Larry Bernandez Bobblehead night on Saturday, August 27th against the White Sox (2011 Mariners Promotional Schedule).  

Typically I am not motivated to go to any sporting even based on promotional giveaways - at least I like to think that I'm not.  But when I found out that the Mariners were doing this and that it magically fell on a Saturday that I have absolutely nothing on my calendar, I convinced Hailey to let me look into tickets.  Unfortunately the combined cost of airlines, hotels, and tickets to the game will have to postpone my first trip to Safeco Field, but you can bet that I'll be intently searching eBay for Larry Bernandez bobbleheads on August 28th.


You can see all of the 2011 Mariners commercials here: 2011 Mariners Commercials, and get a great review of all of them from one of my favorite Mariners' blogs here: Lookout Landing.

Have you ever been coerced into buying tickets to anything due to a giveaway or a promotional handout? Comment below!

EDIT: This story was on the espn.com front page the afternoon after I wrote this post: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6583786

Free Marketing Idea of the Day

Last night I was at The Sands Volleyball in Des Moines and a teammate and I had a conversation before our game about how we noticed that all of the volleyball nets were supplied by various beer companies.  He suggested that the nets were probably given to The Sands by the local beer reps at a drastically reduced cost (if not for free) as a way of marketing to the thousands of players that take the sand volleyball courts every spring & summer. 

While it is somewhat of a faux pas to talk about what happens in the restroom, a bathroom stall is one of the few places left where a marketer is able reach a relatively captive audience.  Using the same strategy as the beer reps and the volleyball nets, if a toilet paper company would be willing to give public restrooms a better product in exchange for their logo on the dispenser doesn’t everyone win?

The toilet paper company would get inexpensive advertising at the cost of some reduced rate toilet paper and the signage they would use on the dispenser. The bar or public restroom operator wouldn’t have to pay any more than they are currently paying for the pathetic excuse that most places pass off as toilet paper.  Finally, the patrons would receive a better product! 

I’m not sure the cost difference in creating or supplying the high quality stuff vs the alternative, but since toilet paper isn’t something that many people are overly brand loyal to, I’d venture to guess that many consumers would be willing to switch to a quality product in a saturated market after taking advantage of a free trial sample.  

While this idea isn’t totally thought out and doesn’t have every possible scenario outlined, that is the point of a half-baked idea.  Run with it TP companies, and if it is viable, your public restroom patrons will reward you with purchases!

Derrick Rose is the MVP

Derrick Rose is a 22 year-old point guard who was named the MVP of the NBA for 2010/11.  Many people would automatically assume that since Derrick Rose is good, and good NBA players get paid a lot, that Derrick Rose would be one of the highest paid NBA players.

The NBA salary cap for 2010/11 was set at $58 Million per team.  Each team is allowed to have 15 people on their roster and if you were to split the $58 Million evenly, each player would have a salary of  $3.867 Million. 

Here is a list of players who are making more money than Derrick Rose this year.  I have limited it to the remaining 8 playoff teams because I believe that these teams represent most of the best teams in the league and the best teams are generally run by the smartest people and you'll see LESS bad contracts. 

Chicago:
Carlos Boozer - $14,400,000
Luol Deng - $11,345,000
Derrick Rose - $5,546,160

Atlanta:
Joe Johnson - $16,324,500
Josh Smith - $11,700,000
Jamal Crawford - $10,800,000
Kirk Hinrich - $9,000,000
Marvin Williams - $7,262,500
Al Horford - $5,444,857

Boston:
Kevin Garnett - $18,832,044
Paul Pierce - $13,876,321
Ray Allen - $10,000,000
Rajon Rondo - $9,090,911
Jermaine O'Neal - $5,765,000
Nenad Krstic - $5,543,116

Miami:
Chris Bosh - $14,500,000
LeBron James - $14,500,000
Dwyane Wade - $14,200,000

Memphis:
Zach Randolph - $17,666,666
Rudy Gay - $13,603,750
Shane Battier - $7,354,500

Oklahoma City:
Nick Collison - $13,270,000
Nazr Mohammed - $6,883,800
Kendrick Perkins - $6,696,720
Kevin Durant - $6,053,663

Dallas:
Dirk Nowitzki - $17,278,618
Tyson Chandler - $12,600,000
Caron Butler - $10,561,960
Jason Terry - $9,873,000
Jason Kidd - $8,610,500
Shawn Marion - $7,055,500
Brendon Haywood - $6,900,000

Los Angeles:
Kobe Bryant - $24,806,250
Pau Gasol - $17,823,000
Andrew Bynum - $13,700,000
Lamar Odom - $8,200,000
Ron Artest - $6,322,320
Luke Walton - $5,260,000

*All salaries taken from ESPN.com*

So that is a total of 34 players - on only 8 other teams - that are getting paid more than the league MVP.  I also threw in a couple of other guys that are making close to what Derrick is getting paid. 

So why is Derrick Rose so underpaid? The main reason is the NBA Rookie Wage scale.  Unlike the NFL or the MLB (which is complicated), the NBA has a set of guidelines that pretty much state what each team is to pay each rookie depending on when he is drafted.  Since Derrick is still performing on his rookie contract, he is getting paid less than 34 players that are still in the playoffs.  The NBA doesn't limit what players can make in endorsements and Derrick has taken advantage by doing multiple local ads as well as being one of the faces of Adidas. 

By understanding the rules that the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc, impose on their teams and players we fans can make more educated decisions regarding some of the recent hot sports topics over the last year.  For example, the NFL is currently in a lock-out and one of the sticking points is the owners would like to institute a rookie wage scale similar to the NBA.

It takes a lot of luck in the draft and a smart GM to create a title contending NBA team, usually the best choice is to go against the popular opinion and not sign a guy for more than he is worth.  I'm sure that if Derrick Rose chooses to re-sign with Chicago when his contract expires for $20,000,000 (completely made up number) per year in 2013, the Bulls fans will forget that he was ever at one time underpaid, even though many of those same fans will then complain about how he is ruining the Bulls' chances at potentially creating a title contending team.