The fallacy behind “black sells”: Mets jerseys

Odds are on any given day you’ll find me ranting about the black Mets jerseys.  The best defense has always been that they sell.   This is a business right?

I have long maintained that if the Mets sold orange or blue jerseys they too would sell, because they would be new.

This morning I was doing some shopping and I decided to click on the list of Top Selling Mets items on mlb.com

Those are your Top 5.  Let’s analyze.

1.  A 2009 BP Cap.  It is blue.  It is $9.99

2.  A 2010 BP Cap.  A new item.  It is also blue.  It is $26.99 and not as good looking as the 2009er.

3.  Topps 2010 Blaster.  Coincidentally 2010 Topps are all over the blogosphere and the NY Times.  Funny how that works.

4.  A UV-protecting baseball square.  I cannot explain.

5.  2009 Topps.  Again, baseball cards are in the news.

The 6th item is a Jason Bay t-shirt in black.   Bay is new.

If they wear orange jerseys people will buy them because they will be new.  If they bring back a version of the blue jerseys those will sell too.  Anyone who wants a Piazza or Franco jersey in black has one.   I understand this is about the money, but time to let the black be turn-of-the-century retros.

Not on the best seller list are these 1987ers.

3 Replies to “The fallacy behind “black sells”: Mets jerseys”

  1. While I don’t care about the black, I agree with you that they’d sell whatever color they made.

    Your post is just as misleading though, as you said, the two blue caps (both of which I now own) are either new, or on sale. the plastic globe is because it’s Spring Training time and lots of people want to get a case to put their shiny new ball they got signed by Andy Green, Jose Valentin, Bobby Keilty, Ruben Tejada, Jerry Manuel, Jeremy Reed and Cory Sullivan. (okay, that was me last year..)

    I don’t know how you’d weight ‘availability’ towards ‘desire’. sales receipts from a merchandise stand infront of Citi featuring identical blue/orange/black shirts?

  2. The only way to really compare is to look at home/road/alternate jersey sales numbers and compare them. It could very well be that the black jerseys sell better than the white or grey ones.

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