Tampa Bay Rays: MLB should market Wander Franco like a teen LeBron James

A Lesson from St. Vincent-St. Mary’s

When it became apparent that LeBron James was the “Chosen One” as Sports Illustrated put when they featured the 17-year-old on the cover of their magazine, his high school turned his status into dollars.

St. Vincent-St. Mary’s High School sold television rights to ESPN. They moved their home games to the University of Akron. They sold season tickets.

They raised ticket prices. They charged appearance fees. They milked the teen for every dollar they could. If he were a paid professional they would call it good marketing, but since he was an unpaid teen trapped in a developmental and learning environment, it was exploitation.

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1113454004456050688

LeBron’s former high school teammate, Maverick Carter commented on the school district’s deal with cable companies to set up a pay-per-view model for people around the country to see the highly-marketed phenom play high school ball.

“His senior year they actually put the games on pay-per-view,” Carter said. “You could watch LeBron James games anywhere in the state if you paid like ten bucks.”

His high school made every dollar they could by marketing and selling a teen LeBron.

“Their complaint is they’ve gone to watch their son play at other venues and maybe a ticket has been $4-$5 and all of a sudden they go watch at SVSM, and it’s $12 for an adult,” said Ohio High School Athletic Association commissioner Clair Muscaro, whose bylaws don’t restrict ticket prices.

LeBron was marketed by national media, the NBA, his school district, and his high school. The forces at work ensured that the entire country knew who this kid was. He was such a hot commodity before he was even drafted, he signed a seven-year, $87 million deal with NIKE.

Wondering why Wander can’t debut on TV.

The ethicality of what St. Vincent-St. Mary’s High School did or what the NCAA has done for years, does not apply to Wander Franco.

Why can’t a kid who has dominated every level of professional baseball get the national exposure he deserves in his very first spring game? We should be acting like this is a big deal, because it is. 

Why wouldn’t Major League Baseball promote this like it’s LeBron James against Oak Hill Academy?

Why isn’t ESPN2 broadcasting a momentous occasion such as this?

Why are the Rays broadcasting the other half of the split-squad games instead of Franco’s?

The Rays will be on television on Thursday, but it’s the split-squad playing the Yankees instead of the group with Franco meeting the Tigers.

Build Anticipation

Major League Baseball should be worrying about creating stars. They have opportunities every year to promote future stars of the game. Perhaps they don’t want to shine an even brighter light on the service time structure that encourages teams to purposely leave qualified youngsters off of Opening Day rosters. Maybe they are too busy worrying about the time it takes to intentionally walk a batter.

The world won’t care if Major League Baseball doesn’t appear to care.

It’s okay to market the kid. He’s a paid professional. At least put him on TV so we can see what Baseball America is talking about. So we can see what MLB Pipeline is talking about. So we can see what Baseball Prospectus is talking about. Just so we can see.