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How Jon Hamm and Other Famous People Could Help Save Major League Baseball

Also in Traina Thoughts: ‘Bad Beats’; college football beats the World Series in viewership; good news for ‘Friday Night Lights’ fans and more.

Jimmy Traina

How Jon Hamm and Other Famous People Could Help Save Major League Baseball
How Jon Hamm and Other Famous People Could Help Save Major League Baseball /

1. Major League Baseball has a marketing problem. This is not a revelation. Young people aren’t embracing the sport, and old people like me are being alienated by absurd rule changes, nonsensical blackout restrictions and flat-out dumb streaming deals.

But I saw something Monday that can help with baseball’s promotion issues. Free agent Trea Turner, who hit 21 home runs and drove in 100 while batting .298 for the Dodgers last season, released a hype video to pump up his accomplishments.

What made the video stand out is that it was narrated by Jon Hamm. And if anyone knows marketing and how to sell something it’s Jon Hamm, who gives off major Don Draper vibes in the clip.

As a Yankees fan, I wanted my team to give Turner a $500 million contract after listening to Hamm do his thing.

These videos need to become a regular thing ASAP. Every single free agent on the market should make hype videos with narration. I’m torn on whether they should all have to be narrated by Hamm or whether they should be open to all famous people.

Imagine Adam Sandler narrating an Aaron Judge hype video. Jerry Seinfeld narrating a Jacob deGrom video. Samuel L. Jackson narrating a Clayton Kershaw video.

This is such an easy thing for the league to do, but MLB is usually so bad at marketing its players. Hopefully someone in the league offices sees the Turner video and gets inspired to make these narrated hype videos part of the free-agency season.

2. Speaking of baseball’s marketing/promotion problems, more people watched Tennessee-Georgia on Saturday than the Astros’ World Series–clinching win over the Phillies.

Tennessee-Georgia: 13.05 million viewers
Phillies-Astros: 12.87 million viewers

In other ratings news, Rams-Bucs, generated 20.25 million viewers for CBS in the late window Sunday.

Fox’s early window, led by Packers at Lions, landed 15.49 million viewers.

3. Shout-out to my good friend Diesel, who had New Mexico on Saturday. He told me about his horrific loss, but I didn’t really feel his pain until I saw how he lost the cover on this week’s “Bad Beats.”

4. It was amusing to see the shock on Hannah Storm’s face Monday as she announced that her colleague Jeff Saturday had been named Colts head coach.

5. Good news for my fellow Friday Night Lights fans: Scott Porter (Jason Street) and Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen) are teaming up for a new podcast about the show, It’s Not Only Football: Friday Night Lights and Beyond, debuting Nov. 10. 

6. This was funny.

7. The latest SI Media Podcast features a conversation with Jim Nantz.

It was recently announced that Nantz will step down as the lead voice of the NCAA tournament after this year, and Ian Eagle will take over that spot. Nantz reveals what went into his decision, what the tournament means to him, how he feels about Eagle getting the No. 1 gig and whether this means Nantz’s time doing the NFL and golf could be winding down. Nantz also discusses the NFL season, why he’s fine with the Lions playing on Thanksgiving every year, a possible Bills-Chiefs AFC title game rematch and much more.

Following Nantz, Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY in New York joins Jimmy for the weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, Jimmy and Sal talk about Twitter charging $20 for verification, the Kyrie Irving controversy, the NFL’s penalty for taking off your helmet and more.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.

8. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Happy Election Day.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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