ESPN’s business guru Darren Rovell is all about branding. If a company’s about to release a new product, he’s going to be the first in line to decide not only if that product is any good, but also how the company presents itself across every imaginable outlet. Nobody knows the price of good exposure and marketing like Rovell, who would seemingly sell his soul to Twitter for the chance to push his follower count past 1 million. That is, if he can keep himself from being suspended from Twitter for a week for making fun of overweight sports fans.
Rovell’s latest exercise in brand testing and displaying his business expertise came via New Era Caps, as he just had to get in on the test run for the company’s new Diamond Era hats. After all, what kind of social media god would he be if he didn’t take New Era up on its offer to let him take some batting practice with New York Yankees legend and the greatest closer of all-time, Mariano Rivera? But Rovell didn’t just want the lame, soft overhand toss style that comes with PR stunts like this. He demanded Rivera’s best, and that’s what he (kind of) got.
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Some people would expect a guy who writes about sports for a living (and constantly reminds people what an expert he is at his profession) to at least have basic knowledge of how to swing a baseball bat. But this is hardly the first time that we’ve discovered that Rovell couldn’t hit a hole in one if he was holding a football bat.
