When I saw that FOX is going to debut Justin Bieber’s new video prior to Game 3 tomorrow, my first impulse was to scoff, as people of a certain age and disposition always scoff at whatever teen sensation is out conquering the world at any given moment.
But my second thought is to appreciate the move as pretty brilliant. Not just for Justin Bieber’s marketability -- who cares? -- but for baseball’s.
Game 3 is the early start game, with the first pitch going down before 7PM. The early start combined with all that Bieber Fever is going to ensure that a ton of young, impressionable minds are going to be watching. While I predict that the vast majority of the Bieber people will go off to shop for glittery lip gloss or trade Silly Bandz or whatever it is Bieber people do once the video is over, even a tiny percentage of those folks is a big number of people. If they stay, and if they watch, baseball may do what it’s always accused of being unable to do, and that’s attract some young fans.
A pipe dream? Maybe. But not every baseball fan was created via a nice game of catch with dad or watching the Brooklyn Dodgers through a knothole or whatever the hell old Brooklyn Dodgers fans claim they used to do. Some fans just happened to see baseball on TV once and it caught their fancy. If three minutes of bubblegum pop makes even a couple thousand new baseball fans, I for one will be happy to endure it.