Good morning Mets fans,
Since black uniforms popped up on Mets Blog yesterday, and little is going on in the Metsiverse as I write this Tuesday evening, I thought it might make sense to revisit this post from April.
Brian had a conversation with a Mets marketing executive and wrote up his account of the conversation.
Since this was originally published, the Mets have had me over to dinner and we talked about the article. In the original article I deleted the executives name and replaced the name with “Casey.” A Mets staffer used the name of the person to me, so I more than ever believe that Brian’s account of the conversation is accurate.
With all things Mets Police, I remind you this isn’t news – just a fat guy in a basement trying to tie things together. I leave it to you to decide if the site is reliable or not. And with that…here’s what Brian said the executive said..(from April 2010, and note that the formatting in the original article has gotten funky – a cleaner version is below)
Immediately, I started in on the black uniforms. (Casey) told me that I may be surprised, but those who don’t like the black uniforms are overwhelmingly in the minority. According to (Casey), they received a lot of positive feedback on the black uniforms in the May uniform survey. (Casey) did say that those who like the black are less enthusiastic about it, meaning: “Yeah, I like ’em” rather than those opposed, who REALLY hate them.
(Casey) did say that it is their number 1 selling jersey and the reason why they axed the black road uni last year was it created some customer confusion (which I took to mean: people come in, see two black uniforms and go, “they’re the same, but one says Mets. I want the one that says Mets.”) (Casey) did go on to say the black New York road alt constantly got overstocked because people who bought the black bought the home alt, so they decided to kill the road version. (Casey) also mentioned one of the reasons black is used is it acts as a “third color” for outerwear and other merchandising.
Based on (Casey’s) comments about the black, essentially saying it sells well, but it doesn’t seem to be because of their overwhelming loyalty to the black color, I asked if (Casey) thought a blue alternate jersey may be a good avenue to explore? (Casey’s) response was a resounding no. (Casey) referenced the poor sales of the blue batting practice jersey. I immediately reminded (Casey) how low the visibility is for batting practice items probably suppresses sales especially since the Mets have taken to wearing their snow whites during home spring training games during the last 3 seasons and (Casey) agreed that it might be a factor, but insisted the market wasn’t there for a blue alternate top. I found that fairly surprising, but (Casey) said they had done extensive research on a blue alternate top and the interest just isn’t there.
