Coming To A Small Screen Near You : Further Opportunities For SF’s Brian Wilson To Burnish His Rep

(above : Wilson, mulling wardrobe changes for spring training. photo taken from Kings Of Cork)

It was announced earlier this week that Showtime and one of the persons responsible for ESPN’s trainwreck “Bonds On Bonds” will supervise the production of a San Francisco Giants reality series taking place during the 2011 MLB season. Perhaps forgetting that “Hard Knocks” did nothing to hinder the New York Jets 2010 aspirations, the Press Democrat’s Lowell Cohn warns, “the Giants do not require a reality show to become a national story or any kind of story..their most gripping story is on the field, not behind the clubhouse door” (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factoryca)

Baseball players are creatures of habit ” they prepare the same way for every game and wind down the same way afterward. They don’t want a TV crew to disrupt their routine. The clubhouse is a baseball team’s house. Would you want a camera crew lurking in your bedroom? And baseball players are the grumpiest professional athletes. This is known. After a loss, certain players will hate a camera recording them. Matt Cain comes to mind right away. Jonathan Sanchez is notably media shy.

If the Giants go into a losing streak ” all teams do ” some players will take out their irritation on the camera crew. Some may even blame the crew for the losing streak, claim they can’t concentrate with the camera always shadowing them. Can you imagine the scene when the camera catches a player screaming at the crew to get out of his face?

Well, yeah, that’s exactly what we’re waiting for. But when Cohn dismisses the concept as a mere matter of greed (“the Giants are trying to strengthen their brand so people all over the country and the world will buy their jerseys and caps and they can make a bundle of dough”) he fails to understand that SF ownership will experience no greater windfall from such global merchandising than the owners of Oakland, San Diego or Tampa Bay.  ‘Cept for sales at ATT Park or in the Giants’ clubhouse stores, such profits from licensing all go into one MLB pool.