MLB The Show

I'm sure that we are all familiar with the Chicago Cubs and their futility as a professional sport franchise. It has been over 100 years since they last won a World Series. It has even gone back so far that the reason for this futility can be traced to the "Curse of the Billy Goat". Legend has it that in 1945 during a World Series game against the Tigers, a man named Billy Sianis, was asked to leave the game due to his billy goat smelling horrific and distracting fans. Sianis then went on to sending a telegraph to the team owner after and condemned them with the distinction of never even hosting another World Series game at Wrigley. Now, this is very superstitious and far fetched, but it has gotten this agonizing for fans of Chicago that they put the blame for their failures on this. It might just have more to do with awful personnel decisions than a far fetched story about a goat, but that is just one man's opinion. Never mind the whole Steve Bartman story which was another catastrophe.

The whole point I am getting at here is how teams market themselves to fans. Sure, as a fan I love the personalities of the players on my favorite team and the history of the franchise. At the end of the day though, it all comes down to winning. One of my favorite video games that I buy annually and hands down the best baseball video game is MLB The Show. The video game industry is obviously huge and MLB The Show is one of the best selling sport games year in and out. The marketing campaign I wanted to base my blog on is a distinct commercial for MLB 12 The Show.

I found this commercial to be extremely entertaining. I can relate to the premise as a hardcore fan of the Yankees and other various professional teams. There is nothing like seeing your favorite team win a championship, and ultimately that is why we watch the games. The ironic part about this campaign is the fact that they are indeed marketing winning, something that is a big no-no in the sport marketing industry. The obvious part of this yearly installment of the The Show's campaign was to really drive home the fact that you control the game. If even the dreadful Cubs can win a World Series in this game, than anybody can. It really tries to show how in control you are as a gamer in The Show and how it makes you actually feel like you are part of the team/tradition. Below is another commercial for the same game, but the 2010 version.

Again here, the driving force is to make the gamer feel like they are actually a baseball player or have some type of impact on the game. It stresses how even "an ordinary guy like you or me" can play and have the realistic feel of an MLB game. This commercial is very cheesy including Joe Mauer, but the premise remains the same. If you search all The Show's commercial year in and out it's about incorporating the fans/gamers and giving them a realistic feel. These two videos are just a few examples. This is an actual game shot of the game releasing next week, it is so realistic that it's scary.

Though it can clearly be recognized what the motives here are, there are of course positives and negatives of the campaign. The positives are that they are thinking of the customer and making them feel like part of the team. Nothing gets a fan more excited than actually having the feeling of contributing to a team. These games are built to be so realistic that it gives fans that feeling. It also makes for a friendly banter between friends online. The negatives here in these campaigns in my opinion are the redundancy. As I said, the commercials every year are repetitive. I would like to see the game incorporate a different method to marketing next season. Baseball is a dying breed and the league has become very pitching/defensive oriented. I think the games could do a better job of marketing certain players to try to increase fandom. I don't think choosing the enigmatic Yasiel Puig as the cover athlete this year was a coincidence, the MLB recognizes this. They are very successful with their marketing and selling though. It is one of the top selling video games year in and out. That makes it even more impressive because baseball is dying here in America. The bottom line here is the game is trying to sell more video games to a target market of not only MLB fans, but to a new generation. There is no better way to do that than to include one of the rising stars in baseball on the cover.