Over the past decade, the Boston Red Sox have won two World Series titles, making it into the postseason six times. Last year, stuffed with high-priced players, the team suffered one of the worst collapses in baseball history, losing 18 of its final 24 games and painfully missing the postseason by one measly game. This past offseason, a lot came out about the misbehavior of team members, Boston added controversial manager Bobby Valentine to the mix, and, well, things got worse. 

The team is now in fourth place in the American League East and 7½ games out of contention for the postseason with about six weeks of ball to play. Mathematically, the team hasn’t been eliminated yet, but nobody seems too scared that this Boston team, poised to miss its third straight postseason, is going to make a run.

And while everybody else is figuring on Boston to just play out the string and enjoy their winter, Red Sox ownership wanted fans to know Thursday that they weren’t going to just sit around and let their brand falter. "Every franchise, every brand goes through rough times. No one is immune to the hills and valleys," team president and CEO Larry Lucchino said, according to MLB.com. "We've had a long run of success. We've created very high expectations for the franchise. Sometimes those high expectations are not met, and the result is a reduction, a hit to the brand and to the team and to the fan base. If it's broke, we'll fix it." Continue reading...

On the heels of our report about the flagging influence of traditional news media comes a Washington Post story about the manner in which sports teams are scoring media coverage and protecting their brands.

Increasingly, professional, collegiate, and even high school sports teams are tightly controlling the way news about their team brands gets out to the public. In fact, many leagues, conferences and even teams have their own media operations. A lot of it has to do with the widespread availability of news and information via the Internet.Continue reading...

Google image search is dead. Long live Google image search. But first, a gallery for the art directors: "Awkward Stock Photos" (above)

A naked cowboy sees a naked cowgirl … no, this is not the beginning of a joke but a trademark suit. Continue reading...

In recent years, Sears and its corporate sibling Kmart have been the ailing cousins to the virile Target and Wal-Mart, but some aggressive marketing and Web 2.0 thinking might keep those brands from joining A&S and Kaufmann’s in department store heaven.

Sears and Kmart are operated by Sears Holding Corporation, whose chairman is the billionaire Edward S. Lampert. The mercurial Lampert tends to run Sears the way George Steinbrenner ran the Yankees (constant executive turnover, pound-foolish penny-pinching), but just like “The Boss,” Lampert has opened his wallet for the players on the field, in this case apps and websites in the league of online retail, the Wall Street Journal reports.Continue reading...

Baseball's World Series won by New York Yankees in six games. [NY Post]

Chrysler unveils five-year plan, aspires to be "a great public company once again." [LA Times]

Mickey Mouse undergoes some tweaking in Epic Mickey video game. [NY Times]

Vaseline attempts to toughen up body lotion for men. [NY Times]

Scripps close to procuring majority stake in Travel Channel. [NY Times]

Dodge will create a sub-brand for Ram automobiles, marketed separately. [MediaPost]

(More headlines: Wal-Mart, De Beers, Beatles, B&N Nook.)Continue reading...

Yankee fans are no doubt excited to find themselves back in the World Series after a six-year drought. Most fans would be thrilled to have nine post-season appearances and a World Series title over the past decade, but fans of the Bronx Bombers are a spoiled bunch.

The Yankees are not just a national, but a global brand, far exceeding any other US baseball team. However, New York regional World Series matchups are not big attractions. In fact, when the Mets and Yankees squared off in 2000, it was then the lowest rated championship contest in the history of baseball.

Ratings for last year's Philly-Tampa Bay World Series were the worst since that Subway Series. The highest-rated game drew only 15 million viewers, down from 20 million the year before, when the Red Sox and Rockies squared off. Ratings tend to be better when the teams are from different regions. (Retirees and vacationers bind Tampa closely to the Northeast.)Continue reading...