Take Me Out to The Ballgame...

Noticed this story today on Bloomberg.com

From outfield walls to bathroom stalls, baseball fans are bombarded with advertisements at the ballpark. This season, players can't escape the barrage even in the sanctuary of their locker room.

As center fielder Juan Pierre of the Chicago Cubs dressed for a game at Shea Stadium in New York, a sign above him was promoting Marquis Jet. His chair was sponsored by Marquis, too.

``It shocked me,'' Pierre, 28, said last month before a game against the Mets.

Visitor locker rooms are the new frontier for stadium advertising. The Mets and Boston Red Sox, striving to maintain $100 million-plus payrolls, became the first Major League Baseball teams to sell access to multimillionaire ballplayers in what was once a commercial-free zone. The advertiser is closely held Marquis Jet, which rents time on Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s NetJets fleet of private planes.

The New Jersey Nets of the National Basketball Association were the first to bring Marquis Jet into the visitor locker room. Not only did the chairs and towels carry the blue, black and white Marquis logo starting last season, so did signs inside the shower room.

Now - what we really need is a Google AdSense type service that will put together a cooperative of little businesses to get this kind of exposure.