Hip-Hop x MLB = Finally!

Everyone knows that baseball is America's pastime, with that pastime comes all of the old traditions, stigmas, stereotypes, and double standards that have stuck with the sport since the 1900's. Major League Baseball is the last of the 3 major American sports including the NBA and NFL that has still yet to embrace urban American culture. We have seen numerous ad campaigns for the NBA and NFL over the years featuring hip-hop artists, superstar black athletes, and even to the extent where Lebron James is doing commercials for the NFL! The MLB & commisioner Bud Selig up until last night had refused to embrace urban American culture & lifestyle without any creative marketing efforts to reach and promote the sport within urban communities and moreover black communities. The Civil Rights game as well as Jackie Robinson day were created particularly and naively for the betterment of the black community's relationship with baseball. The only problem is that blacks and urban communities do not watch baseball anymore because they are watching the NBA and NFL, who both of which do an outstanding job reaching the communities that make their respective sports popular as well as in reaching the athletes that they desire to participate.

After watching the World Series last night with the performance of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, I finally for the first time since being a kid feel a tremendous amount of hope for new marketing efforts between MLB and other prominent urban brands and figures. It isn't surprising that Jay-Z is at the forefront of it either. I've been saying it for years, as well as fighting for a place in the game that has for the last decade not been "black" friendly(for lack of better words). Maybe the cycle is returning back home to the time where players like Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Barry Larkin, Shawn Dunston, Andre Dawson, Eric Davis, and many others were superstars in the media with advertising and marketing campaigns that made baseball cool and relevant to black kids like myself......it's a start!