There are plenty of sports fans out there we’ve written about who do bad things during games, these Philadelphia Phillies fans are pulling off an impressive — and pretty darn funny — combination of a taunt and team spirit. No one is too dignified to mimic Atlanta Braves pitcher Craig Kimbrel’s bird of prey moves, and to be honest, it looks like a blast. [More]
baseball
Cardinals Fans Would Rather Not Eat Cotton Candy That’s Been On The Bathroom Floor
By 9.19.14
Perhaps officials at Busch Stadium in St. Louis need to look into not only a place for a lady to hang her purse in the bathroom stall (if they don’t already have hooks), but some kind of appropriate resting place for food vendors to set down their wares when nature calls. Because seeing bags of cotton candy on a dirty bathroom floor with some toilet paper is just… well, it’s seeing food on the floor of a public restroom. It’s gross. [More]
SF Giants Fans Can Now Pay $179/Year To Speed Through Security Line
By 9.9.14
If you’ve been to a Major League Baseball game this season, you may have noticed that one or more of the gates at the stadium now has TSA-like security checkpoints, as the league has required that all teams scan all attendees with metal detectors starting next season. And just like the airport, the lines can back up and cause annoyance. So of course some company is looking to make a buck off impatient baseball fans. [More]
AT&T, DirecTV To Take Over Comcast SportsNet Houston; Will Fans Finally Be Able To See Games?
By 8.7.14
Things are looking up for Houston Astros fans. The team isn’t currently in last place, and the ‘stros are outperforming the even more woeful Texas Rangers. Now comes news that some Houston-area sports fans may even get to watch their favorite teams on TV after a bankruptcy court determined to hand over ownership of Comcast SportsNet Houston to AT&T and DirecTV. [More]
FCC Chair Asks Time Warner Cable Why It Treats Dodgers Fans So Badly
By 7.30.14
As we’ve discussed in an earlier post, some 70% of people in L.A. are currently unable to watch the L.A. Dodgers because SportsNet L.A., a station jointly owned by the first-place team and the bottom-of-the-barrel cable company, won’t let other pay-TV carriers air the channel without paying a premium. While the FCC has generally stayed out of such messes, FCC Chair Tom Wheeler has let TWC know that he’s not exactly happy with the current situation in Los Angeles. [More]
Korean Baseball Team Replaces Human Fans With Terrifying Remote-Control Robots
By 7.25.14
I’ve made no attempt over the years to hide my affection for the Philadelphia Phillies. I’ve even been known to attend a few dozen games a year, but sometimes I can’t always make it to the game, or — especially when the Phils don’t have much phight in them — it’s just too depressing to slog down to Citizens Bank Park and wonder why I masochistically pay to witness brutal, almost nightly beatings. If only I were a fan of the Hanwha Eagles. [More]
Yankees Fan Gets $1.5 Million After City Rejected His “Buck Foston” Sports Bar
By 5.2.14
Sports rivalries can be so funny! It’s like why would Red Sox fans care if a Yankees fan wanted to start a bar named after a deer named Buck Foston — oh. Clever, right? Or not, but a jury said a club owner had the right to name his bar Buck Foston’s Road House and also gave him $1.5 million. [More]
Regional Sports Channels Highlight Problem With Comcast/TWC Merger
By 4.29.14
When Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal questioned Comcast and Time Warner Cable execs about how the merger of these companies would impact regional sports programming, the two cable operators shrugged it off as a silly question. But it’s not, and here’s why. [More]
Which MLB Teams Are A Steal To See And Which Should Be Called Out For High Prices?
By 4.1.14
Spring is in the air and baseball has begun. We all know a trip to the baseball stadium can cost big bucks, especially if you want to surprise your sweetheart with a proposal. So, before heading out to cheer on the home team, you might want to take a look at what you can expect to pay for the experience. Want a hint? It’s more than last year. [More]
How Much Does It Cost To Propose At Your Home Team’s Baseball Game?
By 3.31.14
Getting your face on the kiss cam? Amateur. Proposing to your loved one via a billboard message for everyone at the game to see? That’s how the pros do it, and it can cost a pretty penny. It’s Opening Day across our baseball-loving land and while spring weather might not be in the air everywhere, love can be — but at what price? [More]
Want Free Tickets To A Tampa Bay Rays Game? Eat This 4-Pound Burger And A Pound Of Fries
By 3.28.14
Over at the Tampa Bay Rays clubhouse, or wherever baseball people hang out (a clubhouse makes sense, right?) I imagine there was a conversation after the Arizona Diamondbacks revealed its 18-inch, $25 corndog stuffed with cheese and bacon. And it went a little something like this… [More]
Arizona Diamondbacks Selling $25 Corndog Stuffed With Cheese, Bacon, Dreams
By 3.19.14
Long gone are the simple hot dogs, soft pretzels and other stadium fare — now if you want to drown your sorrows in food when your team isn’t doing so well, sporting venues across the country have upped their culinary game. Enter the new $25 D-Bat Dog: An 18-inch corn dog stuffed with cheddar cheese, jalapenos and bacon, on the menu at the Arizona Diamondback’s Chase Field this season. [More]
This Outfield Wall Ad Inadvertently Reveals Hidden Potential
By 2.28.14
Advertisers have been slapping their logos on outfield walls at baseball parks for longer than any of us have been alive, but have any of those advertisers taken advantage of the opportunities available for visual trickery? [More]
20 Years Ago, Only 1 Baseball Stadium Had A Corporate Sponsor; Now All But 9 Do
By 2.6.14
When the 1994 baseball season started, there was only a single MLB stadium whose name could be considered a result of corporate sponsorship (and the company owned the team at the time, so even that is up for debate). When the 2014 season kicks off this spring, fewer than one-third of the stadiums are without a corporate name over the gates. [More]
Gillette Auctioning Off “Beard Balls” — Bundles Of Players’ Discarded Facial Hair — For Charity
By 11.21.13
We know what that hollow, empty feeling in the center of your chest is. You’re feeling bereft because you don’t own bundles of discarded facial hair, which previously resided on professional baseball players’ faces. It’s your lucky day, since Gillette has decided it’s a great idea to auction off shavings it’s dubbed “beard balls” from Boston Red Sox players David “Big Papi” Ortiz and Shane Victorino. It’s all for charity, but eww. [More]
Lucky Guy Is Probably The Only Person Going To Game 1 Of The World Series For $6
By 10.22.13
On the one hand, it’s pretty darn awesome and amazing that a guy was able to buy a ticket to Game 1 of the World Series for only $6 on StubHub. But it’s also a bit sad for whoever listed that ticket, as it was probably — okay, most definitely — a mistake. [More]
Was Detroit’s Singing Hot Dog Guy Fired Because He Hates Ketchup, Or For Just Being Annoying?
By 9.13.13
For more than a decade, he’s scaled the steps of Comerica Park in Detroit, selling hot dogs to Tigers fans and occasionally busting out in song to hawk his wares. Then last week, he was given the boot by the stadium’s foodservice contractor. Some say it was because of his too-harsh stance against ketchup on hot dogs. Others say it was just because fans finally got sick of his singing. [More]
First-Ever TV Commercial Was 10 Seconds Long, Hawked Bulova Watches
By 8.9.13 — Updated: 8.14.14
One Tuesday in July, the Dodgers were playing the Phillies and the game was televised. There’s nothing unusual about that, except that it was July 1, 1941, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and only about 4,000 people in New York City even owned televisions. American life and attention spans changed forever during that broadcast, because Bulova paid TV station WNBT $9 to run the very first television ad. [More]
