Tim Tebow

[nymr83]

The Mets are now LEADING the wild card race. coincidence?

[Frayed Knot]

metirish wrote: Christ almighty, how many stupid shirts would the Mets have to sell to make any real $$ on this?, what's the cut for the team on apparel sales?, the angst over this is comical.

Teams don't really make money on minor league guys. Even if Tebow winds up boosting the hell out of the attendance in whatever minor league stop he makes (assuming he even gets that far) that windfall will mostly benefit the minor league owner at each level which, with the exception of Brooklyn and the Gulf Coast squad, isn't the Wilpons.
At the moment I believe the outlay for Tebow is around 100K which maybe sounds like a lot for what is so far just a winter commitment, but at the same time it's less than what many teenage draft picks get and most of them won't see the big leagues without a ticket either. Finding and developing players is expensive and you miss a lot more than you hit. Tebow's path to get there is different for sure but at this point he's just another hopeful whose journey will end far short of CitiField.

The money for jersey sales is split 30 ways among the teams with the exception that teams can own and run outlets in their designated 'home area' and keep the profits from them. So if you're wondering why NYM outlet stores sell other teams' stuff (including MFY gear) it's because they think they'll sell and that helps the bottom line. But the money made from a theoretical Tebow shirt sold in Modells or wherever (and I can't believe there'd even be Tebow shirts made yet) would go to MLB's general fund and not directly to Fred's pocket.

Angst is what Met fans do.

Edited September 10, 2016 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

Frayed Knot wrote: Angst is what Met fans do.

I know. And it's so tiresome.

[metirish]

Frayed Knot wrote: metirish wrote: Christ almighty, how many stupid shirts would the Mets have to sell to make any real $$ on this?, what's the cut for the team on apparel sales?, the angst over this is comical. Teams don't really make money on minor league guys. Even if Tebow winds up boosting the hell out of the attendance in whatever minor league stop he makes (assuming he even gets that far) that windfall will mostly benefit the minor league owner at each level which, with the exception of Brooklyn and the Gulf Coast squad, isn't the Wilpons. At the moment I believe the outlay for Tebow is around 100K which maybe sounds like a lot for what is so far just a winter commitment, but at the same time it's less than what many teenage draft picks get and most of them won't see the big leagues without a ticket either. Finding and developing players is expensive and you miss a lot more than you hit. Tebow's path to get there is different for sure but at this point he's just another hopeful whose journey will end far short of CitiField. The money for jersey sales is split 30 ways among the teams with the exception that teams can own and run outlets in their designated 'home area' and keep the profits from them. So if you're wondering why NYM outlet stores sell other teams' stuff (including MFY gear) it's because they think they'll sell and that helps the bottom line. But the money made from a theoretical Tebow shirt sold in Modells or wherever (and I can't believe there'd even be Tebow shirts made yet) would go to MLB's general fund and not directly to Fred's pocket. Angst is what Met fans do.

excellent, thank you....

[Frayed Knot]

Frayed Knot wrote: Teams don't really make money on minor league guys. Even if Tebow winds up boosting the hell out of the attendance in whatever minor league stop he makes (assuming he even gets that far) that windfall will mostly benefit the minor league owner at each level which, with the exception of Brooklyn and the Gulf Coast squad, isn't the Wilpons. At the moment I believe the outlay for Tebow is around 100K which maybe sounds like a lot for what is so far just a winter commitment, but at the same time it's less than what many teenage draft picks get and most of them won't see the big leagues without a ticket either. Finding and developing players is expensive and you miss a lot more than you hit. Tebow's path to get there is different for sure but at this point he's just another hopeful whose journey will end far short of CitiField.

Actually the Mets/Wilpons do own the Port St Lucie team also.
They do NOT own their affiliates at low-A Columbia, AA Binghamton, or AAA Las Vegas
They appear to partially own the Appalachian League team in Kingsport.

[Zvon]

lolol, this cracked me up.
I had to share it here somewhere. This is the closest appropriate thread.

[Guest cooby]

Dozier. That was who it was.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Order Yours Today!

[Frayed Knot]

NYDN: Traditionally, MLB teams are forbidden from selling a jersey with a player’s name and number on it until that player makes the 40-man roster ... But, ESPN reports, Tebow signed a “bridge agreement” with Majestic Athletic, which is MLB’s official uniform provider, that allows the company to sell gear with his name and No. 15 on it before he makes it to the Big Leagues.

[Guest d'Kong76]

That's in the column from a different source. The whole thing just strikes me as comical.

[seawolf17]

Third-best-selling jersey on the site, sez the internets, behind Thor and Custom.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Can somebody explain why Tim Tebow is such a big deal? All I know about him is that he was a briefly successful quarterback, is very religious and is (or was) "saving himself" for marriage.

The first two things are common enough. The third is, well, I don't know... It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would make someone wildly popular.

So what is it? What have I missed?

[Edgy MD]

It's part of the broader culture war. He was a successful college quarterback, and a Heisman winner. But occasionally, somebody comes along that can succeed wildly in the college game, but isn't cut out for the pro game.

So he didn't get much of a shot, and amid that shotlessness came insinuations that he was being railroaded for his Christian values. He didn't make this claim, but it was the sort of bullshit culture war non-controversy controversy everybody's got to have an opinion about. As if he's the first Christian athlete.

And then --- AND THEN --- by the blessing of fate, attrition led to him getting a shot ... and he SUCCEEDED ... modestly. He led his team deep into the playoffs, and this, to some mindsets, PROVED he was getting shafted. The other side of it was that his modest success was based on his undeniable athleticism, his leadership (as nebulous a quality as THAT is, it is widely acknowledged even by his detractors).

And then, nothing. His team came up short of Super Bowl glory, and he's been in the hinterlands trying to find a job ever since. And around the beginning of this purgatory (which happens, of course, to any number of players), ESPN gave orders to their on-air staff to mention his name every 17 seconds forever. Controversy!

It's the non-story story that keeps giving. Only the Brad Pitt/Jennifer Anniston breakup has been milked longer.

[Benjamin Grimm]

So it sounds like he's kind of like a football Kardashian, famous for being famous?

[RealityChuck]

Tebow was a great college QB, so he had that behind him when he joined the NFL. He is very demonstrative about his faith, which played well with religious NFL fans, and he won a couple of playoff games with long passes when people thought things were over. Scouts never thought he was a particularly good QB, but he did have enough talent to get lucky. It built up his fan base (many of whom were fans of his college career).

His clean-living style is also very appealing to some.

[Edgy MD]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: So it sounds like he's kind of like a football Kardashian, famous for being famous?

Sort of, but again, he has the added distinction of being a sustained flashpoint in the culture wars.

When and if Tebow succeeds, I say good. But there are any number on both sides who see his success as linked to the advancement Christian and Republican and Conservative hegemony.

Donald Trump's numbskull staff announced him as a speaker at the Republican National Convention, and he publicly responded with "No, I'm not, and I haven't even been asked." He can't lose and he can't win.

[Frayed Knot]

Over-lapping with several of the above but, what the hell, I already typed it.

He was WILDLY successful a college quarterback (Two? Heisman Trophies)* down deep in the south (U of Florida) where nothing is bigger than being the star QB and particularly a white one. I mean they built a fucking statue of the guy when he was like 23 years old!!!
But his style of play -- more run than pass which he could get away with because he was bigger than the fast guys on defense and faster than the big guys -- always drew questions about whether his game would translate into the NFL so questions such as, would he be drafted?; on which team(s) would he best fit?; how high or low w/should he go in the draft?; how quickly c/should he start?; would his throwing motion (long & ugly) prevent his success?; were the teams passing over him smart or be kicking themselves down the road? All those questions and more essentially preceded him into the league in an era where nothing is talked to death more on a national basis than NFL QBs.
He then played a year, in Denver, where his team seemed to succeed despite him (or so his detractors claimed) but at the same time he had just enough late-game heroics for his supporters to claim that he had the old 'knack' for it, that he had, like Jeter, the 'clutch-ness' gene that could overcome whatever deficiencies he had. He even won a playoff game in last minute fashion. And then Denver signed Peyton Manning and T.T. was shunted aside like last week's fish and so THAT became its own cause celebre.

In short, there were just so many stories around him and so many not just willing to take a 'Pro' or 'Anti' stance on him but felt as if they had to that he was probably the most talked about figure in sports for a several year period despite not having the career to back it up ... and then THAT becomes a story to talk about. Then there's ESPN, which practically owns college football and caters to pro football, couldn't get enough of him and it's tough to underestimate how much the four-letter network drives the sports conversation in this country, particularly once one gets away from the big city and they become the only voice available to so many.




* just one actually

[Benjamin Grimm]

Thanks, everyone, for the explanations. For me he's been one of those people whose name is very familiar but I've never really focused on why his name is so familiar.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

My memory of Tebow becoming famous was appearing in an icky commercial with his mother testifying that he coulda been aborted but wasn't.

It was just, ew.

[Ceetar]

The coverage of him is the worst part, surely. He fit/fits a certain promotional schema that has little to with actual skill and dominating airwaves/news coverage where many fans would've preferred to hear about other/better players and things. And like much of media (today) the over-promotion becomes the story so it feeds itself. "We're only talking about Tebow because it gets traffic! ..because we've been hyper promoting it. Because it gets traffic!" see also: Donald Trump.


Take the "devoted to baseball" and "Just want to put the work in" angles that are being played up now, despite that he's being paid like 100x more than a walk-on, has special marketing deals, and still gets to skip games for his other job(s).

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: My memory of Tebow becoming famous was appearing in an icky commercial with his mother testifying that he coulda been aborted but wasn't. It was just, ew.

and yeah, the preachy anti-abortion Super Bowl commercial certainly doesn't help the dislike factor.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't recall that commercial, but I would guess that it made some people love him and some people despise him.

[Frayed Knot]

One other thing that adds to the Tebow 'controversy' is the switching sports thing.

On the one hand there are a handful of snobs within baseball who don't like what he's doing because they think he'll be allowed to 'cut the line' ahead of 'real' baseball players. They did the same when Michael Jordan tried his hand at baseball although, considering that MJ was essentially given a pass directly to AA, the resentment was more justified as he WAS taking the spot of a more deserving player based solely on his fame. As of now anyway, Tebow is guaranteed nothing beyond the instructional league so it's not really in the same class.

Then, on the flip side, there's the anti-baseball part of the media (which is essentially most of it right now) who get pissed off whenever someone chooses baseball over either football or hoops. Again Jordan was an example, SF pitcher Jeff Samardzija (a top receiver at Notre Dame) made the 'wrong' choice according to those who like to dictate how others should run their lives, as did Bo Jackson going back a bit further.
So Tebow basically gets the attention/criticism coming and going here and one of the first questions he got asked today was whether he was going to essentially abandon this thing before it even got started and contact the Patriots on account of their QB getting injured on Sunday.

[Guest d'Kong76]

It would be interesting if you could get 1000 jersey buyers and ask them,
"why did you buy a Tebow Mets' jersey?"

Since we can't do that, feel free to give fake answers that might have been.

[Guest themetfairy]

d'Kong76 wrote: It would be interesting if you could get 1000 jersey buyers and ask them, "why did you buy a Tebow Mets' jersey?" Since we can't do that, feel free to give fake answers that might have been.

It's my path to salvation!

[Frayed Knot]

I don't think it can be dismissed that all this is going down in Florida which is the home base for many of the Tebow worshipers.

[Zvon]

I wouldn't make a card til I saw an NY on his head. What position is he supposed to be playing?
I haven't followed this at all. Except to read that the Mets Tebow jerseys have been moving briskly. Ha, smart move Sandy.

[MFS62]

If there had been no Tim Tebow, ESPN would have created him.

Later

[Lefty Specialist]

d'Kong76 wrote: It would be interesting if you could get 1000 jersey buyers and ask them, "why did you buy a Tebow Mets' jersey?" Since we can't do that, feel free to give fake answers that might have been.

"Thought I was getting a Beltran jersey."

Or in 3 months:

"They were giving them away and I was cold."

[Frayed Knot]

MFS62 wrote: If there had been no Tim Tebow, ESPN would have created him.

The folks that cover college football -- and ESPN all but Owns college football at this point -- don't really cover it so much as they cheerlead for it so they essentially try to create a new Tebow, or several news ones, every year. Each season they'll pick out some teenager to fall in love with and attempt to build him into the new national hero with a zeal topped maybe only by NBC Olympic coverage.
Most will fall by the wayside, usually when the performance can't match the hype, but maybe because he gets tossed over in favor of the next cute young thing, or when his rap sheet starts to grow longer than the stats sheet. Tebow was merely the guy who never did falter so he still carried that partly accurate/partly hyped rep into the pros where the whole thing blew up into a monster.

What position is he supposed to be playing?

He'll be strictly an outfielder for now, although I suppose 1st base isn't out of the question down the road.
Of course if he can't hit then his position will go back to being a football talking head.

[Guest Mets Guy in Michigan]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't recall that commercial, but I would guess that it made some people love him and some people despise him.

sw7qX1TpdNQ

Here's the Super Bowl ad. I don't have a problem with it.