Christian Clark Dr.

Erin Dietel-McLaughlin WR 13300 5 October 2012

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The Rhetoric of Americas Pastime You are being manipulated. It happens every day, from the commercials you watch on TV that try to manipulate you to buy a product, to the chair youre sitting in right now that manipulates you to sit with a certain posture. Its even certain peoples job to strategically design a product and make it as desirable as possible to customers like you. In The Art of Rhetoric, James Herrick describes rhetoric as the study of persuasion (3). Even Lloyd F. Bitzer, in his essay, The Rhetorical Situation, states, rhetoric is always persuasive (4). So who better to be using persuasion techniques than businessmen trying to sell a product? Raking in $7 billion in 2010 alone (Brown), Major League Baseball is an extremely profitable business. The businessmen working behind the scenes in the world of Major League Baseball are constantly looking for ways to persuade people to spend money and buy tickets to games. To do this, the creators of the billion-dollar baseball stadiums must implement rhetorical strategies while constructing the stadiums to ensure people will be persuaded to buy tickets and see games. Recently, in 2009, the two baseball teams in New York City, the New York Yankees (Yankee Stadium Comparison) and the New York Mets (Citi Field Information - Citi Field By The Numbers), each planned on building a new stadium for their team to play in. Each team was given the opportunity to re-evaluate how to strategically build a stadium that would influence the most people to come, and therefore make more money. Since both stadiums were constructed in the same year and in the same city, comparing the rhetorical strategies used in each stadium, and

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analyzing how these strategies create the optimal game-experience for ticket-buyers, would give insight to rhetorical techniques are catered to the needs of a specific team. While the designers of the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field have the shared goal of creating the best game-day experience in order to sell more tickets and make more money, the vast differences in the two teams forces these designers to use different rhetorical strategies to complete this goal. Yankee stadium focuses on their rich history and past and present success, while Citi Field focuses on a new beginning, the history of baseball in general, and inviting new fans to watch games. The New York Yankees is one of the oldest teams, and the most successful team in the history of Major League Baseball, winning 27 World Series, the most of all Major League teams (MLB World Series Winners). With its old age and success follows a rich history and long legacy of talented players and happy fans. This theme of a rich history is implemented in many elements of the stadium to lure past and present Yankee fans to buy tickets to games. The exterior of the new stadium greatly resembles that of its predecessor, the old Yankee Stadium, built in 1923 (Yankee Stadium Comparison) and home to many of the Yankees greatest accomplishments. Both stadiums have a grey concrete exterior with narrow, tall windows all along the curved side of the stadium. And both stadiums have a classic-looking YANKEE STADIUM in gold letters above the entrance. Having the new stadium look so similar to the old stadium is a rhetorical technique used by the designers of the stadium to let fans remember that success the Yankees have had in the past in their old stadium. In turn, the fans will be more willing and excited to buy tickets to games in the new stadium. This rhetoric is not just utilized in the buildings exterior, but also in Yankee Stadium facilities like Monument Park, a section of the stadium dedicated to Yankees with retired numbers; the Great Hall, a hall with large banners [that] bear the images of former Yankees, [] iconic players from the past (Yankee Stadium

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Information - A-to-Z Guide); and even the fact that the stadium kept its original name, trying to keep the momentum of its success and history. All of these aspects of the New Yankee Stadium attempt to stir up Yankee fans pride in the history of their team, and let them aspire that the team will be as successful as it was in the past. This creates a higher demand for tickets to games and makes the Yankees more money. The New York Mets is not the oldest team in the Majors, playing its first game in 1962 (Mets Timeline), and it has not have much success, winning only two World Series (MLB World Series Winners). With so little history, the rhetorical strategies used when creating Citi Field couldnt appeal to fans pride in a rich and successful history like the designers of Yankee Stadium could. Instead, the rhetorical techniques focus on the history of baseball in general to persuade fans of all kinds to buy tickets to games. When you walk into Citi Field, the first thing you see in a giant, blue number 42. Surrounding this entrance lobby are television screens playing film of former Major League baseball player, Jackie Robinson, on repeat. Jackie Robinson is considered by many as the most influential and important player in the history of baseball, breaking the color barrier in 1947 as the first African American Major Leaguer since baseball became segregated (Biography). The designers of Citi Field created what they call The Jackie Robinson Rotunda (Citi Field Information - A-to-Z Guide) to appeal to all baseball fans. This broadens the audience of people who would want to buy tickets and come to Citi Field from more than just Mets fans, thus allowing the Mets organization to make more money. Also, the change in name of the stadium from Shea Stadium to Citi Field is a rhetorical technique in itself. Yes, the name change was in part due to Citis sponsorship of the construction of the stadium, but the name-change symbolizes a rebirth of the stadium and of the team. With so little success in the past, the Mets needed to change their image in hopes of more

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success in the future. This hope for more success is paralleled in fans, too. Fans feel more optimistic with a brand new, completely different stadium, and hopefully a brand new, completely different, and more successful team. This feeling of new hope inspires more fans to buy tickets to games. Yankee Stadiums capacity of 50,287 (Yankee Stadium Comparison) in comparison to Citi Fields capacity of 41,922 (Citi Field Information - Citi Field By The Numbers) shows how the creators of the stadiums used the different sized fan-bases to their advantage for selling more tickets. With more success, comes more fans, so logically, the Yankees would have a larger fanbase than the Mets. Knowing this, the designers of the new stadiums rhetorically strategized how many seats they would put in the stadium. With more seats, Yankee Stadium is able to sell more tickets, and with a large fan-base, there will never be a problem with filling all the seats. The Mets on the other hand, with a fan-base not quite as large, can only sell so many tickets for games and fill so many seats. If there were 10,000 extra empty seats in Citi field, fans would get discouraged. Having fewer seats gives the illusion that the stadium is more filled when it really isnt. This feeling of a full stadium can make games seem more exciting and persuade fans to come back and buy more tickets to games. Lastly, the rhetorical strategies in the stadium that create an optimal game-day experience are specifically catered to each team as well. In Yankee Stadium, the success of the team is what holds fans attention throughout the game and makes fans come back for more. In Citi Field, where the home-team doesnt always do as well, fans attention need to be held by more than the game. This is why the designers of Citi Field made the rhetorical choice of adding more activities and facilities in Citi Field to almost distract fans if the game isnt exciting or if the Mets are losing. Some of these facilities include Citi Fields Pepsi Porch, a section of the

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stadium with a plethora of food vendors, a dunking booth, a mini baseball field for children, and even a room to play baseball videogames in (Citi Field Information - A-to-Z Guide). Broadening the game-day experience to more than the physical baseball game, having such a wide variety of activities for fans to do besides watching baseball, allows spectators have more fun at games and persuades them to come back again and buy more tickets. Even the fact that the Mets have a mascot, Mr. Met, to pep up the crowd during the game while the Yankees do not have a mascot, shows how its necessary for the Mets to keep the attention of their fans when the teams success cannot, making sure fans are having a good game-day experience. A good game-day experience is what keeps fans coming back for more games. A possible counter-argument a reader could make is that the rhetorical choices the designers of the stadiums made were to promote wins for the team, not to persuade more fans to come to games and in turn, make more money for the team, as proposed in the thesis of this essay. Lets assume this counter-argument is true, and the purpose of all these rhetorical strategies is to promote more wins for both teams. What happens to a team when they win more games? They become more popular and grow a bigger fan-base. This, in turn, spurs more ticket-sales, merchandise-sales, and investment in the team from advertisers, making the team franchise more money. It all leads back to making money. No matter how you look at it, if the rhetoric of each stadium promotes wins or ticket-sales, either way, because of these strategies, the team makes more money in the end. Using this comparison of the rhetorical techniques utilized in each stadium should help any present or future designers of baseball stadiums, or designers of architecture in general. This essay could even help someone with the simple task of persuading someone. The first step is to consider the audience one wants to persuade with their rhetoric. Even Lloyd F. Bitzer says that

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rhetoricians must ask, What sort of interactions occur between speaker, audience, subject, and occasion? (2). As shown in this essay, the interactions between the audience (the teams fanbases) and speaker and subject (the stadiums) must be considered separately due to the differences in the two teams. The Yankees audience includes an older, larger, and more content fan-base excited by the rich history of the team. Because of this, the rhetoric used in Yankee Stadium focuses on appealing to fans love of Yankee history, maximizing seating space for the large number of fans, and letting fans focus on the actual baseball games played by a successful team. The Mets audience includes a younger, smaller, more skeptical fan-base and any undecided baseball fans willing to come to Mets games. With this audience in mind, the rhetoric used in Citi Field focuses on appealing to fans love of general baseball history, giving the illusion of a full crowd with less seats, and keeping fans occupied with various stadium facilities, activities, and a mood-enhancing, peppy mascot. All these rhetorical techniques have the purpose of persuading their individual audience. And in this case, the thing the stadium designers are trying to persuade their audience to do is to buy tickets to games. Knowing ones audience is the key to persuading them. As shown with the example of these two stadiums with two very different teams that sport two very different audiences, specializing rhetorical techniques is essential in the art of persuasion.

Works Cited

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"Biography." Jackie Robinson. N.p., 2011. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http://www.jackierobinson.com/about/bio.html>. Bitzer, Lloyd F. The Rhetorical Situation. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, n.d. Print. Brown, Maury. "MLB Revenues Grown From $1.4 Billion in 1995 to $7 Billion in 2010." The Biz of Baseball. N.p., 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 4 Oct. 2012. <http://www.bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5167: mlb-revenues-grown-from-14-billion-in-1995-to-7-billion-in-2010&catid=30:mlbnews&Itemid=42>. "Citi Field Information - A-to-Z Guide | Mets.com: Ballpark." New York Mets. Major League Baseball, 19 June 2012. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ballpark/information/index.jsp?content=guide>. "Citi Field Information - Citi Field By The Numbers | Mets.com: Ballpark." New York Mets. Major League Baseball, 19 June 2012. Web. 04 Oct. 2012. <http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ballpark/information/index.jsp?content=by_the_num bers>. Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. Boston: Allyn and Beacon, 2005. Print. "Mets Timeline | Mets.com: History." New York Mets. Major League Baseball, 19 June 2012. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/history/timeline1.jsp>. "MLB World Series Winners." ESPN.com. ESPN, 2012. Web. 4 Oct. 2012. <http://espn.go.com/mlb/worldseries/history/winners>.

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"Yankee Stadium Comparison | Yankees.com: Ballpark." New York Yankees. Major League Baseball, 19 June 2012. Web. 04 Oct. 2012. <http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ballpark/new_stadium_comparison.jsp>. "Yankee Stadium Information - A-to-Z Guide | Yankees.com: Ballpark." New York Yankees. Major League Baseball, 19 June 2012. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ballpark/information/index.jsp?content=guide>.