Hey baseball – you like people watching your games, right?  Well…

Most watched weeknight game in 15 years. Featuring New York Teams and starting at a New York friendly start time.  You  know why?  Here…

STOP with the 8pm starts for the shiny events.  The orange dots fall asleep.  There isn’t much orange in the Pacific. Stop worrying about if LA fans can’t see first pitch because NYC fans can’t stay awake to see last pitch.

What more proof do you need?

ESPN MLB Notes: Wednesday’s New York Yankees vs. New York Mets Game Generated 2,120,000 Viewers Exclusively on ESPN

• Most-Watched Regular-Season Weeknight MLB Game on ESPN in 15 Years (Excluding Opening Night and Tiebreaker Games)

• July 31 on Sunday Night Baseball: Chicago Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki Mic’d for In-Game Conversation through Interpreter 

According to Nielsen, the New York Mets victory over the New York Yankees on Wednesday, July 27, generated an average audience of 2,120,000 viewers, exclusively on ESPN. The broadcast peaked with 2,810,000 viewers from 10:15-10:30 p.m. ET.

Excluding opening night and tiebreaker games, Wednesday’s game is the most-watched regular-season MLB weeknight broadcast on ESPN in 15 years, since September 14, 2007 (New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox).

As part of its new long-term agreement with MLB, ESPN has an annual allotment of five exclusive, national games in addition to its 25 Sunday Night Baseball games and full exclusivity of the new MLB Wild Card Series.

ESPN’s MLB coverage continues on July 31 when the Chicago Cubs visit the San Francisco Giants at 7 p.m. on Sunday Night Baseball Presented by Taco Bell. During the telecast, Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki will be mic’d up for an in-game conversation with the ESPN broadcast team through Suzuki’s interpreter.

Coverage continues on Monday, August 1, when the Houston Astros will host the Boston Red Sox, exclusively on ESPN.

 

What the hell is this?

That might be the ugliest thing I have ever seen.  Did the Mets not learn from the hybrid caps that blue and black don’t go together?  As much as I hate the black uniforms at least the black cap is less ugly with the jerseys than the hybrids were.

So here is my theory.  Steve Cohen has a nephew.  I will call this nephew Pooch.

Theory:  Poochie Cohen has been given some sort of high job in the marketing department and its also leaning over the shoulder of the Mets social media guy.  Mets Social Media Guy did a great job with the Devils and then the Mets – but something has been amiss this year.  Somebody must be whispering in Mets Social Media Guy’s Ear and forcing bad decisions.

Poochie Cohen is Generation Piazza and thinks black jerseys are rad.  He also loved college basketball ten years ago and proposed this Blackout Thing the Mets are doing a week from today.   Suddenly the Mets are giving away t-shirts to EVERY fan instead of the usual giveaway of 15/20/25000 that we normally see.  Suddenly they have 47000 shirts?

So Poochie Cohen likes the black jerseys and likes the blackout concept…

….and went on photoshop and made this abomination of a logo.  Social Media Guy has to eat it, or Poochie goes running to Uncle Steve.

Poochie Cohen is like Jeff Wilpon with more money and worse ideas.

Uncle Steve doesn’t care about any of this because the Dow is up 0..65% approaching 1pm so Uncle Steve made like 70 gazillion dollars today so whatever Pooch wants to do is fine, something like that is my theory.

But at the crux here is WHY do the Mets think a blackout is cool?  Why not do a blue out or an orange out?  (if we have to do an Out at all)  Why black?  It’s not one of the team’s colors…there its even a song to prove which colors fans are true to.

Why don’t the Mets want to be THE METS?  The Blue and Orange team…..borrowed stuff from the Giants and Dodgers 60 years ago……why do they want to be Poochified?   Who is torturing the Social Media Guy this season?  Why do they allow Vulgar Pete to vulgarize the brand instead of telling him to cut it out.   (Across town BEARDS are off-brand and have to go, why allow an F word in the middle of Let’s Go Mets?)  Why ANY of this?

Why even be the Mets? Why not go full rebrand and become the NEW YORK BLACK DRAGONS  or something.  Then you can ditch the Giants’ NY, ditch the blue, ditch the orange and do whatever Poochie Cohen wants.  Go full XFL Steve.  Go full Arena Football.  Send Mr. Met (who let’s face it, is actually boring) and we can get XTREME DRAGON in here to make the Phanatic look like an old man.

Anyway….I don’t REALLY care.  I used to care but no more.  Baseball is boring and I have zero intention of watching this weekend and zero intention of attending a game.  The Mets let their brand go sideways and they let the sport itself become unwatchable.

So you do you Poochie Cohen.  I am sure Gen-Z will love the blackout and the vulgar t-shirts Pete sells or whatever else you want to do.   Good luck with all of it.

But hey, let’s talk BUSINESS which is Uncle Steve’s language.

When you are trying to sell a product, you have a 60%-70% chance of making a sale with a returning customer. The probability of the same with a new customer is 5%-20%.

It costs up to 7x more to acquire a new customer than to retain an old one.   (via Markinblog.com)

So Steve, if you want to let little Pooch chase new fans at 7x the cost of trying to get me back….and you think that is somehow smart business….you do you.  Enjoy the blackout.

 

So none of you can ever be bothered to read or click a link so let me pull some sentences out of the NY Post on Steve Cohen wanting a Citi Field Casino.…this way you can just read the sentences and maybe you’ll see how the world works.

The headline:

Mets owner Steve Cohen swinging hard for Citi Field casino license: sources

 

Some excerpts from the NY Post.…

….Cohen is believed to favor Hard Rock – also a major donor to Gov. Kathy Hochul……

….Michael Sullivan – Point72’s chief of staff and head of external affairs – is listed on the New York State Gaming Commission’s website as the principal lobbyist for New Green Willets, LLC, which shares the same address as Point72. ….

(by the way gotta love the “new Green Willets” head fake which makes it sound like they want to build a bird sanctuary.)

Multiple sources spotted Sullivan palling around with  (Mayor) Adams at the private nightclub Zero Bond last Thursday during a reception for the 2024 Democratic National Convention host committee. 

 

Here’s one for ya…

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, a Democrat, said Cohen requested a meeting with him earlier this year, which he described as a preliminary discussion about what to do with the property they own in Willets Point around Citi Field.

He said Sullivan was there, as well as Mets general manager Billy Eppler.

Why is Billy Eppler at this meeting???

And unrelated to all this is the report Steve had donated $1,500,000 to Mayor Adams campaign. 

So my guess is this all adds up to Steve will get his casino.

Don’t ask questions.  Just nod and keep your mouths shut.  Everyone can get paid here, and you’ll be happy to have a place to hang out at after the game.  DON’T ASK QUESTIONS KEEP YOUR MOUTHS SHUT.

Also my applause to whoever steered this story to come out around 3pm before a Subway Series game….as opposed to say the off day Monday or the off day Thursday.  This way the media is fully distracted for two days and nobody needs to know nothing.  (which is why I saved it for this morning as it would have gotten lost yesterday morning.)

Per the NY Post…

Mayor Eric Adams is expected to announce that he is onboard with plans for a 25,000-seat soccer stadium to be built near Citi Field that will be home to the New York City Football Club, sources close to the situation said.

“A deal is close, but negotiations are ongoing,” a source said.

…..

And it would be built on land leased by former Mets owners Sterling Equities and Related Companies, sources said.

This is part of the 61-acre Special Willets Point District, bordered by 126th Street, Roosevelt Avenue, Northern Boulevard and the Van Wyck Expressway.

…

It’s gonna be busy over there between soccer and a casino.