Steiner Sports is ramping up several sales initiatives around Yankees P Mariano Rivera setting the new MLB saves record at 602. At the most premium level is the Mariano Rivera MVP club, which will allow 20 consumers to eat lunch with Rivera multiple times, meet him pregame on several occasions and send a child or client to a Rivera baseball clinic. Membership is $25,000 – or $12,500 a year for two years – with 100% of the proceeds going to Rivera's foundation. Steiner Sports Chair Brandon Steiner today said that 10 people had signed on.
Steiner's Mariano Rivera 602 Record collection includes 3,602 autographed baseballs for $199. That is actually a price break for Rivera-signed baseballs, which Steiner said usually sell for $300-350. Steiner said while that price point "may have upset some of our wholesale distributors," Rivera wanted to "reach the most amount of fans rather than get the most amount of money." Other items include signed photographs; a plaque with a capsule of dirt from the mound; a replica lineup card and actual game ticket; a timeline collage and game-used mound dirt, bases and home plate. Signed jerseys, cleats and other items will be announced later. Rivera's foundation will receive a portion of all proceeds from the collection.
Rivera in March came in second, behind Yankees teammate Derek Jeter, in Nielsen and E-Poll's N-Score marketability rankings. But his jersey was not among the top 20 in sales for the '10 calendar year, according to figures released by MLB.
