vorosmccracken.com

The Boston Red Sox will wear advertisements on their sleeves for the opening series against Oakland in Japan.

Now this may sound strange coming from a soccer fan (where every player is a walking billboard), but I wonder just how much there really is to gain here. Clearly were this to become a regular thing, there would be a fairly large number of fans who would be unhappy. Of course some would be unhappy customers, but they’d be customers nonetheless. Still this seems like a needless exercise considering the unbelievably strong financial health of pretty much all of the MLB teams.

Because the open nature of European soccer forces teams to spend every last available dime to stay ahead of their competition (either to qualify for lucrative tournaments or to avoid relegation), every little bit tends to help. MLB teams do not have that kind of pressure to perform (as anyone watching the Royals or Pirates the last decade can attest to) and so I wonder if this would really be a useful risk to take should it suddenly become within league rules to do so.

EDIT: Changed headline, for good reasons.