So, I'm watching baseball while eating lunch (not my choice I might add) and I realize that the Giants have 4 foreigners on their team. This is not allowed for Japan has a rule that teams may only have 3 foreigners on their team. But it turn out that the guy in the picture, Alex Ramirez, is considered to be Japanese-at least when it comes to baseball. Apparently there is another rule that states that if a foreigner has been here for 10 or more years, he is considered to be a Japanese baseball player rather than a foreigner baseball player.So...we are eating sushi and watching the game and it looked like Alex hit a home run and my honey was getting all excited as the camera followed the ball. We couldn't quite see where the ball went but finally my honey said...."ah too bad he didn't hit it". I'm like "hit what?" It turns out that if a baseball player hits one of the advertisement billboards that are located high up around the stadium not only did he get a home run but the company advertising on the billboard he hit would give him $10,000. I asked why of course and he said that normally people watching the game on TV never see the advertisers on those boards so if a player hits a home run, they replay that over and over again which is kind of like free advertising so it is their way to say thank you to the player.
Does this happen in any other country? Do advertisers give money to players who hit their boards?
2 comments:
I don't know, would make sense if they did though because it is more advertising for the company
I read this post to my mum and she said, "Yes. We do that here too." I live in Seattle, so say, Ichiro hits a billboard, he will get the $10,000. (I don't know the amount our teams get, but we do it here too!)
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