Last year at the IMG World Congress of Sport, Funny or Die co-founder (and former ESPN exec) Dick Glover talked openly about how the platform had grown and how, on occasion, sports would find its way into a skit or two. The important thing, he added, was the scenes had to be authentic to be funny. Athletes sometimes are not the best straight men, and even with the best intentions segments that are looking just to engage a different audience in a different, more lighthearted environ, can come off as contrived. The best segments weave really well and take time to plan out and execute, and then also have to have great partners in place to push the engagement.
There was perhaps no better example of that weaving than last week, when “F or D” co-founder Will Ferrell, Major League Baseball and HBO came together to pull off a great stunt, with Ferrell playing all nine innings and nine positions in spring training while putting a show together for HBO. It had more than a few willing partners in Cactus League teams that carefully scoped out the players and the situations who could make it work, a more than willing participant in the funnyman understood the game, and a broadcast partner to air the program later in the spring while the massive media works of MLB.com and MLB Network got their own pieces of the pie. Factor in a great charity element here Ferrell agreed to auction off all the uniforms and other memorabilia used, and the day and all its hype and fun brought great attention to a time of year where baseball, with MLS starting, cold weather still permeating most of the country and March Madness on the horizon, was taking a bit of a backseat of attention between the arrival of ARod with the Yankees and Opening Day.
The ritual of spring training are still a rite of passage for baseball fans, but is a month of spring training games must-see TV for casual followers or first adopters? Probably not. Sure people grab a highlight or two, but engaging and reminding fans that spring training is going on and baseball Opening Day is not that far away can always use a bit of ancillary boost from the norm, and MLB delivered with their one day Ferrell jaunt. Did some people take offense? Well one was John Madden, still a respected NFL voice but one who sounded very much in the minority condemning the stunt. He did talk about Rick Barry once trying to get involved with a Raiders practice and called it ridiculous, but he probably forgot that the ORIGINAL first person account was actually done in and around football, when George Plimpton took the role of a Detroit Lions QB for his book, “Paper Lion.” Maybe it flew in The Motor City but never did in Oakland.
Down the line the Ferrell stunt played so well that there are bound to be shots at copycatting, and for sure other celebs have donned the batting practice gloves from time to time, but pulling off such a complex, over the top and well thought out promotion such as the one that happened last week was truly once in a lifetime. They had the right foil, the right teams, the right players and the right broadcast partner to make it work, and give the stunt a shelf life that will be extended into the spring when HBO reveals the full day with its cameras.
Even in spring training we love home runs, and from a PR and marketing standpoint MLB had a fun one last week, one that should live on for quite some time.
