Consumer advocate Ralph Nader first gained national prominence in 1965 with his book Unsafe at Any Speed, a critique of the safety standards of American automobiles, which prompted significant reforms in the auto industry. Throughout his career he has championed many causes deemed in the public interest, and now that has turned his gaze to a slightly less pressing issue than seatbelts – radio broadcasts of Major League Baseball.
Nader and League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed have challenged Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred to eliminate advertisements during radio broadcasts of baseball games. According to Nader and Reed, commercials should only be aired before and after games and between innings, not during the broadcast of the live game.
In a survey of thirty games from April 9, 2022, Nader and the League of Fans recorded what they considered to be a disturbing 847 in-game ads, averaging 28.2 per game for each team. On that day, the number of in-game ads during a New York Yankees was 51. This represented a significant increase from a similar 2012 survey for a New York Yankees broadcast that found 22 in-game ads.
The other two teams with the most in-game ads were the Chicago Cubs with 60 and the Colorado Rockies with 53.
Nader and Reed wrote, “There’s a time and place for everything. And the time and place for commercials on the radio during baseball broadcasts is before the game, after the game and between innings. There is no place for commercials during the actual broadcast of the game. We call on you to prohibit in-game ads, as they are known in the advertising business.”
They continued, “By allowing ads to spread into the radio broadcast booth and now onto the field, you are damaging the integrity of the game. Do you wish to associate teams with the multiple dark sides of these large corporations?”
