How A-Rod Coverage has made Yankees Off-Season a Success

Phineam T. Barnum of Barnum and Bailey once said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” This goes along the same line as an Oscar Wilde quote, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” As we await the decision on Alex Rodriguez’s suspension those two quotes seem to ring truer than ever.

A-Rod is known for several things: controversy, PED use, hitting lots of home runs, attention seeking, getting popcorn fed to him by Cameron Diaz and my favorite—carrying the Yankees to the 2009 World Series title. A-Rod’s non-stop controversies and behavior has led to a ton of publicity for the New York Yankees. Based on the aforementioned quotes, none of that publicity is bad.

Although the controversies may have a negative connotation and the Yankees have “tried” distancing themselves from the A-Rod issues, it’s all good, no—great, for the organization. In a town where all sports franchises—and there are a lot, nine to be exact—clamor for the “back page” of newspapers, the Yankees have the king of controversy manning third base for them. And when we go a couple of days without hearing any A-Rod news something seems amiss.

For nearly two months we heard news about A-Rod’s arbitration hearing almost daily. A-Rod started suing everyone from MLB to the Yankees to the little boy who walked in front of him after a hearing—actually that last one never happened but it might as well have. A-Rod was on a warpath. Then we heard about A-Rod slamming his fist down in anger and storming out of his hearing because MLB Commissioner Bud Selig wouldn’t have to testify. Then there was A-Rod saying the prosecution had nothing and it would be an easy win for his team. Then things slowed down a little bit on the A-Rod front.

The news may have been sour but the coverage was fantastic. A-Rod and Yankees news was plastered on newspapers, something they both relish. Alex seems to have come to the understanding that no matter what he does he’s the bad guy. And it seems he’s now OK with that. It sounds like he will speak his mind from now on. He doesn’t need your approval or mine. He might go down but he’ll go down guns blazing.

While the A-Rod news slowed down the Yankees news didn’t. Brian Cashman, Yankees GM, began spending as only the Yankees know how to do. He signed Brian McCann away from the Braves; he brought Jacoby Ellsbury over from the Red Sox and finished that trifecta with signing outfielder and life-long Yankee wannabe Carlos Beltran. During the spending though something else interesting happened. The Yankees lost their second baseman, Robinson Cano, to the Seattle Mariners. A lot had happened in Yankee-land and that’s the way they want it because people are talking about them.

When the New Year finally hit, the A-Rod train started chugging again. A series of emails between Alex and the Yankees president Randy Levine were published. They went from extremely friendly, if not “high school text message like” to seemingly hostile. But what did these emails do? They gave the Yankees and A-Rod more publicity and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The email news settled rather quietly and then some more Alex news came out. He’s “considering” taking a lesser suspension to guarantee he will play this year. The league offered him a lesser suspension a long time ago, he didn’t take the deal. So why would he now? He’s not going to take a lesser deal, his camp leaked this “information” for one thing—publicity. It doesn’t change anything. It was just getting a little too quiet for Alex’s liking.

There has been a lot of Yankee publicity, much of it focused on A-Rod and the zoo he created around him. It may not have been good news but it had been great publicity. People were talking about the Yankees and above all that’s what the Yankees want. The Yankees will say they want this A-Rod coverage over but the truth is they don’t.

The Yankees organization has become a loud, boisterous, rowdy entity but it hasn’t been bad. They claim to have a “professional” team and clubhouse but there is nothing more they want than media exposure. They know the fans aren’t going anywhere and they also know that all this noise makes people watch.

The Yankees want people to talk about them, no matter if it’s negative, because if they’re talking about them they’re watching them. Yankee-land knows it better than anyone, except maybe A-Rod, that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.