John Hancock Mutual Life President David D'Alessandro
calls the company's MLB sponsorship a "smart move,"
according to John Powers of the BOSTON GLOBE. D'Alessandro:
"Aside from what Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa did last year,
the sport has a lot of advantages. It has 162 games. It's
a great spring-summer-fall plug for the schedule. And its
having a resurgence among young people. Baseball is
probably one of the more credible sports properties around
at the moment, and it's undervalued because of the problems
they had in the past." D'Alessandro likes figure skating
and gymnastics, the "top two" Olympic TV events which "help
our community but are also national." But properties that
don't "make sense" for Hancock include golf, tennis, rowing
and soccer. D'Alessandro, on soccer: "If I hear one more
person say that soccer is the coming sport in America. ...
The fact that children play soccer, the fact that we have a
zillion soccer moms and dads, the fact that we have a lot of
soccer being played in high school and college is irrelevant
to mass audience." D'Alessandro, on Boston: "For a sports-
oriented town, this has not been a sports marketing town.
It's been a town of signage being called sports marketing.
If you put up two signs at the FleetCenter and sponsor the
third-quarter break, that doesn't make you a sports
marketer. It makes you an advertiser" (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/15).
