The Fall of Flashback Fridays
Kids, I hate to say it … but Friday home games at the Rogers Centre will no long be known as Flashback Fridays.
According to the Blue Jays official Twitter account, there will no longer be Flashback Fridays at the Rogers Centre. The news comes after a noticable lack of Giveaway Days on the Blue Jays 2010 home schedule, and it appears Flashback Fridays were not immune to the cutbacks.
I would say this was a fairly successful promotion, with prominent players in Blue Jays history returning for autograph signings and on-field recognitions. Most notably was the Back2Back Weekend just last summer.
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That also means the Blue Jays will no longer sport their Powder Blue uniforms on Friday home games, but apparently will still be worn during selected games throughout the season.
Maybe this opens the door for the 1992-1993 Home White jerseys to make a return?
I understand that I'm not in the offices to make these decisions but I can't in any situation believe this was because of cutbacks. The costs of putting on a Flashback Friday are mainly in print advertising (which has not been scaled back in the papers), the cost of hosting and compensating a visiting player, any in-stadium signage for that day (negligible cost) and the time spent creating in-stadium graphics which is really nothing at all. And even if all those costs did for some reason become a nuisance, a very low level and fairly attainable sponsorship could be figured out.
I think it might have more to do with the fact that Flashback Fridays weren't as much of a draw (they were never a huge draw) and as they went down the alumni ladder, the pool was getting increasingly shallower. You can only dip into the "Kelly Gruber lives 45 minutes away" emergency Flashback Friday insurance so many times…
But overall, in a intangible "team culture" philosophical kind of way, this might not be so bad. The team is young and the organizational mindset is focus on the future! (and not dwell on how good things used to be…hehe)
Jeff, all of those are fair points. You're right – now after two years of Flashback Fridays, there aren't many players left to chose from that haven't been there already.
Also the overall makeup of this team is getting younger and younger, so it makes more sense to veer away from the Flashback Fridays.
I thought it might have been part of cutbacks because it looks like there are only 3 actual giveaway days on this years schedule. Maybe I'm reading too much into it …
I'll be really happy if we can stop celebrating '92 & '93 and focus on the future of the Jays for the first time in almost 20 years. It was great and all but let's move on please.
I understand that the Jays want to and should look towards the future, however, I think the Jays like many other teams should still celebrate their history even if it isn't through the Flashback Fridays promotion. Maybe an alumni weekend or even an Oldtimer's game may be options.
It's always a great idea to honour the teams of the past – I think they are doing some sort of mini reunion again at the end of August, but there aren't any details as of yet.